Dear Isabella
by wtvoc
Summary: He said "always". She wasn't so sure. All-human. M for language. All the usual angst applies.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi! Happy New Year!**

**This is the auction fic for McSmirkle, the generous generous person who donated 1400 bucks to kick cancer's ass for Support Stacie. We'll tell you what the prompt was later- for now, just know this is all-human and the usual angst.**

**Thank you to elleCC and tkmoonnumbers for reading (and sorry, guys. You know why.) They ain't telling you anything, so don't even bother asking.**

**All future chapters will be posted on our website A Different Forest in rapid succession.**

**Enjoy!**

"**Dear Isabella" by jandco and withthevampsofcourse**

**Dear Isabella-**

**They say there are more ghosts in New Orleans than in all the haunted castles in England. And if you walk through and see the melancholy-in-their-beauty cemeteries, you'd believe it. At least I do. Sort of. You know how I'm not very superstitious and all.**

**So I walk around in this ridiculous heat, trying like hell to forget about you, but all the damned gravestones and all the damned grim, grinning reminders of what we once had mock me. Ghostly remembrances of you gesturing crazily at some hat you just **_**had**_** to have, or of me holding that awful and gaudy mask right out of **_**Amadeus**_** away from you. The time I lost that bet to march in the gay pride parade and got more numbers in five minutes than you had through college and you got all offended. **

**Ghosts of me, ghosts of you.**

**I don't want to be haunted by this, Bella. But I am. Because, despite all that's happened, I still love you. You're it for me, and I'm sorry if that's bothersome for you, but there you have it.**

**Actually, I take that back. I'm not at all sorry. You must have dosed me with something, Isabella Swan. Or maybe it was that one-toothed Madame DeVeque, adding a little juju to those stupid daiquiris you insisted we drink while driving around on lazy summer evenings. Maybe she's got some curative daiquiri for the broken-hearted, because I'm not entirely sure I'm going to survive this.**

**Hell, what am I even doing? You won't read this. You'd never sit still long enough to read something this true.**

**And you know what? I don't forgive you for that. For your impatience. Or for your poor judgment. Or for your flighty attitude toward life, or your sad work ethic. **

**None of it.**

**Mostly, I don't forgive you for leaving.**

**I do not forgive you.**

**I don't know if I ever will.**

**My heart is broken, Bella.**

**-E.M. Cullen**

**Bella**

Edward Cullen.

Quite possibly one of the most brilliant people I've ever encountered, and I've watched a lot of PBS in my day.

He has this fierce kind of loyalty that makes him blind.

Once Edward focuses on something, he can't be stopped- and when his focus is on something other than work, it's awe-inspiring to watch.

He has a pair of boxing gloves, because he boxed for fun and exercise awhile back; he used help me put them on and I'd run around, taking cheap shots at him while he was busy doing other things, and he knows how to tape his hands so that he doesn't get hurt when he's hitting that big, heavy red bag…which he's been doing a lot of lately.

He's the kind of handsome that you have to actually do a double take to make sure you saw him correctly. You know, there's the jaw and the thick hair and the full, dark lips and all of that… and there's the eyes that are almost black when he's very tired or very angry…

I used to say he had mood eyes, just like this mood ring I bought from a dollar store when I was nine. He thought that was ridiculous and proceeded to tell me about the science of mood rings and heat and blah blah blah.

But I didn't care about how it worked or why, just that it did.

We were very incompatible like that.

But there were certain things Edward could never really grasp— like why I preferred no sheets on a mattress or the importance of fresh funnel cakes…

But what Edward _never_ really understood was that it never could've worked, me and him. It simply wasn't meant to be.

Here's the thing: when two people are as stubborn as me and Edward— when two people simply won't give up on each other and keep coming back like locusts or magnets- eventually, fate will intervene if it's not meant to be.

Even now, if I explained this to Edward, he'd roll his eyes at me and tell me to get my damn head out of the clouds.

So explaining this to him would be pointless.

I see him, I check in on him- admittedly, much more than I should- and it's no good. Edward has always been too strong; he's always hung on too tight, even when it wasn't good for him.

If I could make him happy, I would. And maybe in time he'll be less sad and less mad.

There is nothing I wouldn't do for him.

He's the love of my whole life.

If I could fix this, I would.

But right now, I quite literally can't.

**Thanks for sticking with us! Come join us over at A Different Forest for discussion, Rob porn, wtvoc trying to convince you to jump fandoms…. You know, the usual. There are VIP cabins for authors we love, and you can come talk about this fic in the jandcoandwtvoc cabin, js.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Heya. So we **_**are**_** updating this on ff. Apparently, we weren't clear about that.**

**But chapter three is already up at A Different Forest. Someone asked why we update there first… well, it's because that's our website, yo. You don't **_**have**_** to register there. We're just updating with more frequency on ADF to promote it. See how that works?**

**This story is for McSmirkle, who really ought to come out and play with us. It's not for cancer, which is stupid and should go away.**

**Thank you for reading, everyone. If you follow jandcoandwtvoc, jandco, wtvoc, and DifferentForest on twitter… you'll know precisely when we update on either ADF or ff.**

"**Dear Isabella" by jandco and withthevampsofcourse, Chapter 2**

**Bella**

Edward cries at night.

Not loud sobs or anything like that and the only reason I know is because his slow tears leave silver streaks on his face… I don't even think he knows he _is_ crying most of the time.

It's usually right before he falls asleep, when his lids are very heavy. Sometimes I see the silver lines when he's just going about his business, typing at the computer or balancing his check book. Once I saw them while he was brushing his teeth, and once I even saw them when he was already asleep.

He wakes up in the middle of the night, all the time. He used to jump and startle awake, then get out of bed and drink water and smoke cigarettes… but now his eyes just kind of open and he stares at the wall in the dark until they shut again.

I stay curled up right next to him in bed, when he's at his worst.

Especially at night, which is just… ironic. Edward used to be happiest at night.

Some nights we would turn our phones off and ignore everything but each other.

Some nights we would skip dinner and drink a bottle of Bombay in bed, and we'd throw each other around sloppily and laugh for no other reason than we were _happy._

There were nights when I'd chase him around, giddy just to see his face at the end of the day and there were nights when we fell asleep on the couch, my arm wrapped tightly around his waist and my back pressed into the saggy back of the couch, because despite his protests, I was _always_ the big spoon.

Night time is when we were happiest. So, I suppose it _does_ make sense he's the saddest at night now.

It's when he's at his worst that I remember all of the good things… or rather, all of the things about _us_. I replay the story of us in my mind while he lays awake next to me, sometimes crying, sometimes swearing or sweating or punching the walls.

I can't reach up and grab him and I can't put my hands in his hair and I can't tell him it's okay and he's okay and I'm okay and I can't tell him to be happy… so instead, I think of us.

It used to frustrate me, not being able to get to him— sometimes it still does. But it's not as bad anymore. I used to scream my mute scream into his ears and sob dry sobs and chase him around when he was having a fit, but I don't do that anymore. It never worked anyway.

So, on his very bad nights, the ones where I know he won't sleep for hours and when he wakes his eyes will be red and angry… I play the story of us in my mind… and I start at the very beginning…

_Tuesday, March 7__th__, 2000_

I was always conflicted about the end of carnival season. On one hand, everyone go the fuck home already. On the other hand, I hate for anything to end.

Not that I was downtown anyway for all that business. Sometimes I'd watch everyone, caught up in the booze and the freedom. I laughed along with topless girls and went shot for shot with unbeknownst tourists. Once, I even hung out of my window and screamed at the top of my lungs into the crowd… but no one heard me.

I hated not being heard back then. Too young, too unbridled, I suppose… but I was desperate to stand apart and to have a loudness about me that I always felt the carnival season stole away.

So, that particular Fat Tuesday, I put on a pair of tap shoes I hadn't worn since I was fourteen. I rummaged through my top dresser drawer and found the tiny finger tambourines— you know, the kind belly dancers have— that I had bought at a flea market three years earlier and I wound my hair up with the bright, cheap beads some jerk threw at me the day before.

I wanted to go somewhere quiet so I could be the loudest one there. I wanted to hear myself be on top of the world… but mostly, I was just restless and wanted to do _something_, be otherwhere.

So, off I went into the loud and gaudy night, ready to make my own noise and paint my very own streak of red.

I walked with my head up and my eyes in the lights, occasionally hollering with exuberant partiers and admiring the way the ruffles on my skirt flared out around my knees.

I walked until I could hear the metal taps on my shoes on the pavement and then I held my arms above my head and made the little tambourines make awful music and I never intended on finding anything life-changing that night.

I never intended to crash my life into his life and tangle our lives up all together, so much so that they can't ever come apart.

It just happened.

Just outside of my destination, I saw the short, black-haired girl. Some people called her a gypsy and some people called her a psychic, but my own personal opinion was that she was a little bit this side of crazy.

She was kind of a staple around town— she wandered the streets and talked to herself and I was pretty sure she cut her own hair with orange-handled utility scissors. Because her hair kind of resembled my Barbie's hair when I had done that to her when I was seven.

Once I tried to smile at her, but she didn't even notice me and just kept right on talking to herself. Sometimes she laughed out loud and sometimes she actually had arguments with herself, but she never actually spoke to other people.

This particular night she was standing on the corner, picking her nails and talking about flowers.

"Don't be silly, Harry, why would they spring for roses when carnations will do?" she asked, and then was silent. Five seconds after I passed her, I heard her laugh a response at her imaginary friend, just as I opened the door to my hole-in-the-wall liquor store and went for the Bombay.

"Hey Gran," I said, as I clicked by the counter. My favorite clerk at my favorite liquor store barely looked up and grunted. I stopped like I always did, but this time I put my tambourined fingers in front of his face and gave him a ting.

"You're crazy, Bella," he smiled, and his big, shiny cheeks pulled up and he smiled at me, white and big. I gave him my best shuffle step and he shooed me away.

I tapped clumsily down the aisle and called at him over my shoulder.

"I'm hanging out with you tonight, Gran. We're gonna tap dance and sing louder than this whole damn city. What do you think about that— and who the hell are _you_?"

There was a guy standing there in grey wool pants and a once-crisp white shirt. There used to be a tie around his neck, I could tell, but now the button at his collar was undone. The sleeves were rolled to his forearms and I had a sudden urge to snap the suspenders he was wearing… because his hand was on the last bottle of my Bombay.

"Who the hell are _you_?" he shot back, looking at my tap-shoed feet and ignoring my suddenly defensive face.

"I… am Bella, the owner of that Bombay," I said, and I shuffled my right-tapped foot for emphasis. "By the way, the big party you're looking for is that-a-way," I said, jabbing my thumb behind me.

"I'm not here for a party."

"I meant Mardi Gras, and of course you are. You," I said, pointing to him and waving my finger up and down his tall form, "have tourist written all over your handsome face."

"I'm not a tourist; you shouldn't presume to know why people are _anywhere;_ and thank you."

"Then what are you doing here? And I can presume anything I want; and don't thank me, thank your parents for the pretty face."

"I'm buying your bottle of Bombay; presume away, but you're wrong; and I'd rather be handsome than pretty."

"Bombay is mine; I will; and are you okay?"

"No; okay; and _what?_ Of course I'm okay. Do I not look okay?" he asked and kind of looked down at himself, looking for some kind of imperfection.

I was tempted to ask if he found one, because I sure couldn't. His dark hair stood inches from his forehead, but it didn't look gelled and on purpose. It looked like he'd been pulling at it. Despite his Sunday best clothes, he hadn't bothered to shave for I'd say at least three days, and he had dark circles under cloudy green eyes. His lips were kind of chapped, and the top one was much fuller than the lower one… but all of these imperfect things made him kind of… perfect.

"Well," I started, and leaned an elbow up on the shelf of booze, "here you are at 11:30 at night in a liquor store buying up a fifth of Bombay that I _presume_ you're going to drink alone as I don't see a frat buddy or a date. I'm here all the time and I've never seen you here, thus I assume you're sad, lonely and or desolate because, as I said, here you are all alone at a liquor store in what is essentially the middle of the night while the world's biggest party is taking place not even a mile from here. And we've already established you're not looking for a party."

"So?"

"So. You're looking to get trashed all alone. So I repeat- are you okay?"

He paused, a look of total amusement on his face. "I'm fine. Now, here you just admitted to me that you're at this liquor store all the time, and while I see it's a welcoming establishment, I find it rather alarming that a young woman spends 'all the time' at her local liquor store."

"Alarming?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. "Hmm. Perhaps, yet _you_ still don't ask if _I'm _okay, which I suppose is fine. I mean, it would just be out of courtesy if you asked."

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I don't want your pity courtesy."

"Why did you ask me, then?" he shot back.

"I'm nosy. And I figured if you talked out your problem, you'd leave my Bombay alone."

"No dice. But I'm just fine. Thanks for asking."

He held the Bombay by the neck of the bottle and gave me this kind of half smile before walking past me.

"Wait. Share it with me."

I don't know why I said it, and I fully expected him to call me an asshole, but he didn't.

Instead, he looked over his shoulder at me and said, "Okay."

I bought a row of Dixie cups with pink pastel flowers on them and Edward bought the Bombay and then we were leaning on the bricks outside of the liquor store.

I laughed at him, holding the tiny flowery cup and he asked me why I wasn't in the middle of the world's biggest party.

"I _am_ the world's biggest party," I shrugged. He laughed and watched me do heel-toe-heel-toe down the length of the sidewalk.

"Why are you here, really?" I asked, while he was filling up my third round. One of our hands was shaking; I wasn't sure if it was mine or his.

"I'm _with_ the world's biggest party," he grinned, not taking his distant eyes from my cup.

"It's completely understandable that you are here solely for my company," I said, "but you didn't know I was here. Seriously. What's your deal?"

"My father relocated his company here. Well, a branch of it, anyway."

"Ahh. I figured. You spend more time on Poydras than you do liquor stores, don't you?"

"Yep."

"So. Resent your daddy? Hate your high-pressured job? Dream of being a rock star but you're so oppressed—"

"No," he said, and looked up and kind of shook his head. "Not at all. I love what I do. I'm _proud_ of what I do."

"What do you do?" I asked.

"Well, right now I'm overseeing the move of this business… and once that's done, I'll resume with school and keep learning the business… and then. My father will retire and I'll take it over completely."

I whistled between my teeth.

"You have a plan," I said.

"You don't?"

"Uh. Well. Sure, I do. I'm going to finish this drink. Tomorrow, I want to get to the library and learn how to make a lasagna. I have no idea what I'm doing the day after that. Or any of the other days after that. Wait, that isn't entirely true. I want to learn how to tap dance. These shoes inspired me, so yeah. I think I'll learn how to tap."

He blinked at me three times and stared like I just told him that I planned to go on a shooting spree.

"How do you pay your bills?"

"Well. I shoot dice and I have very good luck. It's worked for the past two years. When it doesn't, I wait tables and once, I worked at a pet store."

"How can you… not know what you're doing? Doesn't that scare you? They say social security will run out—"

"Stop," I said, putting my hand up. "I don't make plans because the only thing you can plan on is that plans won't go as you planned them. Life doesn't just _do_ what you want it to do."

"Of course it does. You just have to work to see that it does."

"But you miss out on wonderful, unexpected things if you plan your whole life. For example, if I stuck with my original plans tonight, I wouldn't be sitting here with you right now," I smiled, and poked my finger into his chest.

"Yeah… but Bella," he said, and wrapped his fist around my finger, "_I planned_ to come to the liquor store after work. If I didn't stick to my plan I wouldn't be here."

I just smiled then and did a tappy twirl for him and tinged my tiny tambourines for him, neither of us knowing he'd find out all about fucked-up plans soon enough.

**Dear Isabella-**

**I found your tap shoes. The right heel was missing one of the screws, so I took the set in and had everything replaced or mended. I was thinking about sending them on to Renee- you know, she'd probably like to bronze them for you or something- but I just don't know, Bella. Despite all that's happened, I'd like to keep a memento of our first date. Or our first meeting or I'm not really sure what to call it. Yeah, that's something you do, and I know it's hypocritical of me because I always mocked you for keeping stupid shit lying around, but I'm feeling pretty hypocritical right now. I know that we said words like "always" and "I promise" and "True", but from my current vantage point, I know they were just words without actual, definable meaning.**

**Obviously, you didn't mean it.**

**So you had all of our milestones marked as "anniversaries" that I don't even remember anymore, right? What I do remember is how you'd wake me up for each of those stupid occasions, bright and early and all "Happy Anniversary of whatever, Edward!" March alone had eight such occasions. Our first meet, our first trip outside of New Orleans, our first sleepover, your first semi-successful attempt at knitting, my first disastrous Cajun dinner, that crazy vision you'd had about our lotto winnings, Charlie's death, Jasper's dissertation dinner. I think we just had our First Fight anniversary, but it's not like I dwell on these things as you always did.**

**Anyway, I'll keep the shoes. You don't get to take everything when you leave, so I'm keeping these fucking ridiculous reminders as- I don't know- a cautionary tale, or something.**

**-E.M. Cullen**


	3. Chapter 3

**Still with us?**

**We've posted up to chapter 5 on adifferentforest. Come join for the discussion… and we'd apologize to the people bitching that we don't update as often on ff, but hey. We've got a website to promote, yo.**

**Dedicated, as always, to mcsmirkle.**

**Bella**

Edward… has taken to jacking off in his office. Not like, in a perverted way. It's late at night when the building is empty of everyone but us when he does it. The first time it happened, I turned away, because it seemed like he should have privacy or something. Shortly after that first time, though, I became fascinated by it.

He'd just kind of lean back in that big swivel leather chair and it never started out softly stroking or anything… he just got right down to business.

And a few times, he whispered my name. The first time I heard my name, I felt like I might actually cry. It made me freeze and it felt like my heart was breaking all over again. Never_, ever_ had I wanted to hold on to him so badly. I wanted to wrap him up in my arms and my skirt and squeeze him to me, but I couldn't.

I found it very odd, yet very fitting, how now more than ever, I was his _fantasy_. I was an unobtainable erotic vision for him... and that hurt and made me selfishly happy all at the same time.

At first, I wasn't sure why it was always in his office. I mean, why not in our bed? Or in the shower? Or on the couch or anywhere else? I had a lot of time on my hands, so I pondered that one for a long time.

I thought maybe it was too hard for him, in our home. I thought maybe he was just uncomfortable or maybe he thought it was disrespectful to me— to do that in our home while thinking of me…

But the more I thought about it, the more none of that added up. After all, he still lived in our home, he didn't choose to leave it; and Edward had never been ashamed to say he thought I was sexy… so those reasons couldn't be why.

And then late one night, he started doing it and I started watching… and suddenly, his head snapped toward the metal file cabinet, right under the window. His eyes didn't close; he actually put effort into keeping them open and focusing on that file cabinet. I almost laughed— only Edward could get off looking at fucking files. He adored his work— but then. I remembered something else.

_April fourth, 2000_

I was standing outside of a skyscraper on Poydras. It was late, black outside and the air was sticky and I couldn't sleep. So, I decided to walk, all the way to where I knew Edward was.

At that point, I'd made him eat my first and last lasagna. We'd shared two more bottles of Bombay and made out like horny teenagers on his couch seven times. I had his home phone number and he had mine but things were undefined- and I didn't mind that, not really. It's just- I'd fallen in love with him and I wanted to kind of yell that at the top of my lungs… and who better to tell?

That was the night I figured that out. I was lying in bed and I just was not falling asleep, because I was thinking about _him_. I wondered if he had eaten dinner yet and I wondered if he was tired, because he usually was. And then I realized I was,like, concerned about him. And then I thought about how I really wanted to tell him about how I'm afraid of birds and that I prefer burnt, scorched popcorn… and I wanted to know his take on those things and I wanted him to spend the night and make him smile… so yeah. I was in love with him.

Upon this realization, I jumped out of bed and merrily walked to the building he worked in. No one was more shocked than me that the doors to the lobby were open, yet they were.

It was too quiet and dim in there. It made me a little bit nervous, and all I could hear was the thwack of my flip flops on the marble floor. It made this loud, hollow echo noise that I kind of enjoyed, so I played with my pace to the elevator.

Thwackthwackthwack then thwack… thwack… thwack.

Then I hit the up arrow that was lit white and calling to me. I got in and kind of thought how tragic it would be if I suddenly had a heart attack or if the cables randomly gave out and I died without ever telling Edward that I'd fallen in love with him.

But the doors dinged open and I skipped out, but I realized that I only knew he worked on the sixteenth floor… I didn't know which office was his.

I put a palm on the top of my head and looked down the long hallway to the left of me. No noise, no open doors… but when I looked to my right, I saw brightm fluorescent light coming through an open door, three doors down.

I smiled. It was like he'd left a light on for me.

I stood in the doorway and watched him for a second and decided yes, I was definitely in love with him. He had one hand in his hair and he was kind of slumped over, holding his head, staring at his computer screen. His eyebrows were all pulled together and I could see the top of his undershirt, right where he'd unbuttoned his collar.

"Hi," I said.

He jumped, then lifted his head and stared at me.

"You scared the shit out of me."

"Sorry. I just—"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, of course," I said, then thwacked into his office. There were papers and files all over the floor and I carefully stepped over and around them to a midsized file cabinet. He watched me while I hoisted myself up on it, then I let my heels kick the metal for awhile.

Edward leaned back in his chair and looked at me, kind of amused and kind of confused.

"Whatcha doin?" I asked.

"Here's a better question. What are _you_ doing?"

"Oh! Right. I forgot to tell you something before you left yesterday."

"You forgot to tell me something?" he asked flatly.

"Yes."

"And so you got up at… 12:30 a.m. and wore your pajamas down to my office to tell me?"

"Yes, it's kind of urgent."

"Okay, so, tell me."

"I'm in love with you."

His head slowly cocked to the side and his mouth opened a tiny bit and his dark eyes closed slowly, then opened again.

"It couldn't wait. I'm in love with you right now, so I thought you should know it _right now_. I'm really excited about the whole thing," I shrugged.

"Bella."

"Well. That's all. I'll let you get back to work. I just had to tell somebody."

"Okay?" he said, kind of shocked and weary.

"So. Bye!" I said, and hopped off the file cabinet.

When I was halfway down the hall I heard my name echo, deep and far behind me.

"What?" I called back and looked over my shoulder.

"Don't you want to know if I love you, too?" he asked, standing in the middle of the hall.

He was set in the dim light, half lit up by the bright fluorescents coming from his open door. His hands were loose in his pockets, the suspenders dangled at his sides, and he had a quiet, slow kind of smile on.

"Oh. I already know you love me," I said, and hit the down arrow for the elevator. The doors pinged open and I turned my face away from him to hide the giddy smile I couldn't stop. "How could you not?"

I stepped in and clapped a hand over my mouth and did a little hop and right up until the doors closed, I could hear his bass laugh follow me down the hall.

We were in love.

And it happened at that file cabinet… which is incidentally the first place we consummated said love.

I guess that's why he's always jerking it in his office. Not because it's too sad in our house or because it reminds him too much of me, but because maybe he feels closest to me there.

**Dear Isabella-**

**I know when you've been here.**

**I can always tell.**

**I feel it the most when I'm all alone, keeping myself busy from thinking about you- about us- about the exact moment I should've know things were wrong.**

**And God help me, but I get angry. I've taken to pleasuring myself, furiously- anything to release the pressure and the anger and resentment.**

**Like my anger at you is released with the sad, furiously spurting seminal fluid that also misses having a target to aim at.**

**Yeah, that's disgusting, but I know you'd appreciate the visual. So would Jasper, but I sure as hell ain't telling him about it.**

**I just… I miss you. Not just because of the sex. I can't even think about that right now.**

**But please, stop following me around. These are private moments you don't get to be a part of anymore. You left me, Bella. I have constant reminders of you every time I slump through the damned Louisiana heat. You've seeped into my head, sticky and warm, and no amount of air conditioning or masturbation will drive you away. Just, please- leave me to my sad, sad life and move on. It's getting hard for me to get shit done without you spying on me through God knows what sort of peephole.**

**-E.M. Cullen**


	4. Chapter 4

**Bella**

We're bored today.

And sad. It's a bad day; he's restless and angry and I'm frustrated with him and with the whole situation. If he could listen to me, I could make him feel better, but I can never seem to break through to him, and I know that… but days like today remind me of how unfair this is.

I follow him to the closet in our bedroom and he pulls down a shoebox with my name on it.

"You better not," I say, and then he tosses the lid off, like a defiant child.

"Junk," he says, and he tosses the bent, chewed-up straw— the first straw we ever shared— onto the bed. I point and gasp incredulously— he _knows_ I save stuff like that.

"Why do you save shit like this," he spits out and he tosses the half-used tube of lip gloss I had in there— the lip gloss I was wearing the first time we kissed. "I don't need this shit in _my _house," he say,s and I call out for Emmett.

Emmett doesn't show up and I feel sorry for myself, because right now I have no one I can depend on and I don't like it.

Concert ticket stubs go next, and then a neon green Post-it that says "Love. Still. Sorry. E" on it, in his own handwriting.

I stare at the note and my key ring gets tossed next. Edward shoves his hand back in the box, then pauses.

He's staring at the pile on the bed, and I want him to pick it all up and put it back in the box, but all he does is pick up the keys.

His face turns determined, his eyes go dark and for a second he chews at the corner of his mouth, then he takes a deep breath and starts working my house key off from the rest of the jumbled keys.

"No!" I shout, but he keeps going.

His key rounds the metal ring twice and it's free. With a metallic clank, my keys fall onto the pile of brand new garbage and he's still holding his house key. _My_ house key.

"Put it back," I exclaim, waving my hands around, but he just holds it in front of his face, then his eyes drop to the note.

I call out for Emmett again.

Edward is hurting me, and though I know all too well he can sting me like nothing else on earth, it still hurts just as bad each time. I take a step back and remind myself it's nothing against _me… _and the only reason he can hurt me so much is because I love him so much.

_January 2001_

I was straddled on top of Edward, with the sheet kind of just hanging off of my shoulders. His eyes were closed but he was smiling because he had one hand inside of the sheet.

He traced his fingertips over me, tired and lazy and I kept blowing at a strand of hair that kept falling into my left eye.

"Don't go to work," I said, just before the sun was going to come up and take him away from me.

"I have to," he replied, his voice like gravel.

"You always say you have to. Don't you have, like, sick days? Or vacation time?"

"No," he said, and his fingers stopped tracing and started grabbing.

"That's a big fat lie! Everyone has vacation time; it's like the law, or something."

He opened one eye and looked at me.

"You don't have a job or a law degree. You pay rent by shooting dice. Pray tell, how would you know any of that?" he smirked.

"Because I'm not dumb. Why would you rather go to work than stay here with me? I'll make brownies for breakfast and we can do it on the kitchen table," I said, trying to tempt him.

"Yeah?" he murmured.

"Yes. And we can go turn on the air conditioning full blast and pretend it's freezing outside and I'll wrap you up in blankets and we can watch a movie."

He laughed through closed lips and his fingers splayed across my stomach.

I flopped down on top of him and pressed my lips into his scratchy face.

"You won't have to get up and shave… and we can take naps and I'll sit in your lap all day," I went on in a muffled voice.

"What will we have for lunch?" he asked, playing along.

"Anything you want."

His hands went to either side of my face and he angled me and opened both of his eyes, so we were face to face.

I smiled my most convincing, tempting smile and his thumb brushed my cheek.

"I love you," he said and I kissed him.

We rolled around on the bed for a half hour, getting on top of each other and getting each other off. I shrieked with laughter when he pulled me half down the bed by my ankle and said my name when I rolled on to my stomach for him.

When the sun was up, he kissed the back of my knee and said he had to go.

I rolled over, tangling in the sheets and scratching at my hair.

"One day?" I asked. "Can't _Jane_ take care of things? Isn't this what your dad sent _Jane_ here for? _Jane _is so smart and competent and mastered-degreed. _Jane _is your right hand man with perky tits, isn't she? I mean, what's the point of having her around for help if she's not that big of a help? _Jane_. Do you realize you and _Jane_ would be like, a match made in Chanel-Armani-white-collar-power couple heaven?"

He sat on the edge of the bed and fumbled putting his watch on.

"'Mastered degreed' isn't an actual term. Are you done?" he asked, looking over his shoulder.

"Quite. Stay home."

"I can't, Bell. Not this week. My father is coming in… to check on progress."

"What?" I asked, and sat straight up. This was news to me.

"My parents are coming in. Pretty much to check up on me and I can't slack at all this week—"

"Wait, wait," I said, shaking my head and waving one hand. "Your parents are coming?"

"Yes," he said, and stood up to find his pants.

"Under the nightstand. How did you not tell me your parents will be here?"

"Is it a big deal? You won't even have to see them—"

"I want to see them. I want to meet them—"

"It isn't really a social call, Bell—"

"Edward? Do you not want me to meet your parents?" I asked, then pulled the sheet up and tightly wrapped it around me.

"Not in a 'I don't want you to meet my parents-commitment' way," he said, zipping up his pants.

"Is there any other way? Look. If, uh, we're not as serious as I thought we were—"

"Shut up, Isabella. I love you. You know that. I just… don't like to mix business with pleasure—"

"They're your _parents_. That's hardly business."

"You don't know my parents," he said, working on buttoning his shirt.

"Well. I'd like to."

He put his hands in his pockets and looked at me for a few seconds.

"It won't go well," he finally said.

"Parents love me," I shrugged.

He raised his eyebrows and laughed and I knew I won.

"It'll be great, Edward. We'll have them for dinner, here. I'll make marshmallow kabobs because I'm really good at those and I'll dust off that phonograph in the attic…" I rambled on and he kind of smiled at me with a faraway look while I continued to make plans.

All that week, Edward offered to just make reservations at a restaurant, but I'd already bought the skewers and marshmallows.

When he suggested his place instead of mine, I told him I already cleaned my house and set up the fondue pot for chocolate.

On the Friday of the dinner, I spent the day pressing a linen table cloth and curling my hair. I burned the cloth, my fingers, and the chocolate sauce that day, but I refused to be discouraged.

So, I put a pot of potpourri over the scorch mark on the tablecloth, put band aids on my fingertips and told myself people like chocolate whether it's burned or not.

Who wouldn't want chocolate for dinner?

At 7:00 pm there was a knock on the door. I took a deep breath, pasted my smile on and skipped to the foyer.

"You all look like a J. Crew catalogue," was the first thing out of my mouth.

And they did.

Elegant and impeccable. Edward got his hair from his mother. Hers was the same color, thick and pulled back and up, shiny and perfect. The eyes came from his father, deep and intense.

The pretty came from both of them.

"What's that smell?" Edward asked, and brushed past me and into the house.

"Oh. I burned a few things, but I managed to spare most of it," I said.

"You okay?" Edward asked and turned back toward me.

"Of course I'm okay."

"What happened to your fingers?" he asked.

"Curling iron. What's a little pain for beauty?" I asked, turning to his mother. I think she smiled at me, but I wasn't really sure.

"You look very pretty," Edward murmured and gently tugged at one of my now limp curls.

"So, everyone, come in," I said, and ushered them inside, to where I had set up a table in the living room.

Edward plopped down in one of the metal folding chairs I had set at the table and reached for the bottle of wine in the center.

His father, Carlisle, pulled out a chair for Esme and she looked at it for a second before sitting.

"It won't get you dirty," Edward said when she hesitated.

"Oh! No, I just Windexed them all this morning," I said and all three of them looked up at me.

They of them looked sparkly— snowy clean in the dimly lit room. Everything looked a little saggy in comparison to them, a little sad.

I clapped my hands together and Edward uncorked the wine.

"Are you going to sit?" he asked me.

"Funny," I said, and sat down in the chair next to him, across from his mother.

It was quiet while Edward poured wine into everyone's mismatched glasses. I was relieved that Esme had ended up with the one crystal goblet I owned.

I got the glass tumbler with a daisy painted on it. Carlisle kind of inspected his beer mug filled with red wine in an amused way before he uncertainly picked it up.

Edward raised his highball, but didn't say anything before he gulped twice.

"I burned the chocolate," I blurted out. "But I figured burnt chocolate is better than no chocolate for dinner, right?"

"How decadent," Esme said.

"So, Bella. Edward is quite taken with you," Carlisle said, sipping his wine.

"Oh, I took him alright," I said and Edward cocked his head and smiled at me.

"Where did you two meet?" Esme asked, and held her wine to her chest.

"At a liquor store in the middle of the night," I said. "We fought over the last bottle of Bombay."

Edward leaned back in his chair, and this little crooked smile slowly unfurled on his face. He stayed silent, just watching while his parents stared at me.

Then Esme put the back of her hand to her mouth and this little tinkling laugh came out.

Carlisle's face broke out into a brilliant smile.

"Edward said you were funny," he said. "You are, indeed."

My face burned, but I smiled, like I was in on the joke.

I loved our "how we met" story. I imagined telling it to our grandchildren one day. I wanted to submit it to the _Readers Digest_ and I wanted everyone to know about fate and how perfect we were, with his plans and my non-plans—and didn't they see how perfect it was?

Edward's smile turned kind of bitter and he stared at the potpourri on the table while his parents laughed on.

"Bella, your taste is so eclectic. Tell me, where do you go antiquing around here?" Esme asked.

"My mother is a decorator," Edward said stiffly.

"Retired," she amended. "It's more of a hobby now."

"Oh! Well… a lot of the stuff was here when I moved in. I got that lamp from a flea market, but the shade I found on someone's curb. I rescued it just before the garbage truck came—"

I was cut off by another round of laughter.

"I love that lampshade," I said quietly, but they didn't hear me.

"What do you do, Bella?" Carlisle asked.

"Bella goes to the library," Edward said. "When she's not garbage-picking or hanging out at liquor stores."

My head snapped to him and I swallowed down hard, but he didn't look at me. Humiliation burned from my toes to my face and I tangled my fingers in the hem of the table cloth. I've never been ashamed of myself.

Ever.

Until he said that.

"You two are quite the comedic team," Carlisle said.

"So, are you researching for a class then?" Esme asked.

"No. I like the Classics section," I said stiffly, "I'm going to go get dinner."

In the kitchen I plopped the kabobs on a platter with shaky hands and promised myself I just had to get through the next hour. I squeezed my eyes shut and begged the tears to go away, just for another hour.

"What… is it?" Carlisle asked when I set the platter down in the middle of the table.

"Marshmallow kabobs," Edward said, and picked one up. He stared at his father and bit into a marshmallow.

"How charming," Carlisle said.

"You, um, can dip it… in the fondue," I muttered.

"Oh… yes, well, I don't eat white foods," Esme said, and folded her hands under her chin.

"I didn't know that," I whispered.

"It's a fairly new lifestyle for me," Esme said and Edward slid a green gumdrop off of the kabob and rolled it across the table to his mother.

She ignored it, and patted the back of her chignon.

I felt pin pricks in my eyes and my chest and I couldn't look at the platter I'd just set on the table. It was… embarrassing. I couldn't look at Edward or I'd scream, so I just stared down at my fingers twisting together.

"Aren't you going to eat, Bell?" Edward asked, and nudged my shoulder. I jerked away and shook my head.

"I don't… I'm not feeling so well, suddenly," I whispered hoarse but polite, then offered a smile to his mother, who was staring at the marshmallows still.

"What's the matter—"

"I need to go lay down, I think," I said. "It was very nice to meet you both, I'm so sorry—"

"Oh, don't be silly. It was lovely to meet you, Bella. Please, go. Lay down," Esme said, looking relieved and the happiest she had looked all evening.

I didn't lift my stare from the floor as I stumbled to my bedroom and kicked off my shoes. I clapped a hand over my mouth and breathed in and out of my nose rapidly, so they wouldn't hear me crying.

I stood there, right near the door, not willing to move a humiliated, tensed muscle in my whole body. The tears came out in thick, hot lines and I snotted into my own hand but still, I didn't move until I heard a soft tap at the door.

"They're gone— Bell…" he stood there, looking all concerned that I was crying, and then his fists balled up and his expression slightly changed. "This is why I didn't want you to meet them— they're assholes, Bella. Don't even—"

"You," I spat, suddenly able to move because I was pointing a finger at him. "Y_ou're_ the asshole!"

"_What_?" he asked, leaning against the door jamb.

"'_Bella garbage picks and hangs out in liquor stores'_" I repeated, then crossed my arms tightly over my chest.

"Uh. You do," he pointed out, and shrugged.

"You… you're embarrassed of me—"

"What the hell are you talking about?" he sighed and pulled on his tie, like I was making him tired.

"You sat there, and you spoke patronizingly about me—"

"No, I did not. I tried to clarify for my parents that—"

"Oh, stop it!" I cried out, flinging a hand in his general direction. "Your parents…may not be on my social or economical level, but they were trying to be nice, at least—"

"They were laughing!" he said, losing his temper and shouting.

"And you _knew_ they would! You came in and sat down and watched— no, you _helped_ it along!"

"I didn't want you to meet them in the first place, Bella. Remember? I tried to—"

"Oh, _bullshit_, Edward. You. I'm _not_ your rebellious phase."

"Excuse me?" he asked, squinting his eyes and squaring his shoulders.

"You paraded your parents around here and in front of me to piss them off. 'Hey mom and dad, look at me, having a girlfriend without a Master's that garbage-picks— and God! I don't _garbage-pick_—you made me sound like some kind of vagabond or street urchin."

"_You_ insisted on meeting them. _You_ insisted on making the dinner yourself. I've done _nothing _but what you wanted. I'm not ashamed of you or a damn thing you do. It sounds like _you_ might be, though," he said, low and with a quiet kind of anger.

Then I threw my jewelry box at him.

Beads and earrings and necklaces clacked and rattled, hitting the wall, raining down on the floor. The old wooden box had hit the door molding, inches from his face.

"Calm down!" he shouted, shoving his hands in his damn pockets again while I shakily bent over to pick up big blue beads from a broken necklace.

I looked up from my squat on the floor and whipped a bead at him, hitting his shoulder.

"Never," I yelled, whipping another bead, "have I _ever_ been ashamed of myself or embarrassed to be _me_!"

"Bella—"

"Until you."

My butt landed on the floor with a thud and the crying started again. I pressed my face into my knees and heard a shuffling, but I didn't feel him come close.

"I just wanted… you to be unapologetically _you_," he said softly. "I was trying to… I just didn't want them to make you feel bad—"

"They didn't. They weren't going to. _You_ did that. _You_ were the only one bothered," I whispered shakily into my knees.

"No—"

"This is… dumb. I don't know what we were thinking… you should go."

"_Bella_?"

"Please. Go. It's too…"

"I'm _in love_ with you," he said, like that meant we would automatically get to be together and be happy.

When I looked up he was gone, but my jewelry box was back up on my dresser, with all of the contents back inside.

He called a lot and I didn't answer. He stopped by twice but I wouldn't answer the door. Gran told me he had been in the store, but didn't buy anything. He left a bottle of Bombay at my door.

On the fifty first hour of our first break up, he slid a Post-it note and his house key under my door.

_Love. Still. Sorry. E_

It wasn't a love letter and it wasn't a long-winded apology, but I imagined him at his desk, jotting that down on a Post-it just before he left his office. Like, he just had to give it another shot. Like he was just… thinking of me.

I slid the key around on my floor for about seven minutes before I finally picked it up and walked in the dark all the way to his house.

I didn't even hesitate when I put the key in the lock and walked into his pristine, sparkly and barely-lived-in home.

He was in the kitchen, at the sink, filling a glass of water. He wore dark pinstriped pants, but nothing else. Not even socks.

"I'm still mad at you," I said, while he gulped his glass of water.

He put it down on the counter and started washing his hands.

"Yeah, well, I'm still right," he shrugged.

"I don't care what your parents think of me. I care what _you_ think of me," I said.

"I think you're smart. I think you're funny. I think you're beautiful. I think you're quite possibly insane. I think you're perfect for me."

"Really? Because I think I'm more destined for an artsy, sensitive type of guy," I said flippantly, stepping into his kitchen and opening the fridge.

Bottled water, cheese singles and grapes and two packs of cigarettes.

"How are you surviving? And you still love me, huh?"

"Bella?"

I looked at him over my shoulder and he was staring at me, not willing to play flippant, gloss-over make up with me.

"What?" I asked.

"I would never change a single thing about you. I want you to know that. I want to say it, so there'll never be a question about it again."

"Okay."

"Okay. And, maybe I was feeling bitter… and maybe you got caught in a crossfire, but I never meant to put you there. And if it was me that made you cry— I never meant to."

"I'm keeping your house key."

He raised his eyebrows at me and kind of smiled.

"Now, come kiss me before I find something else to throw at your face," I said.

"You have shit aim. I'm not worried."

"Yeah. But let's kiss for awhile anyway."

And we did. Up against the fridge and in the hallway and on the floor and all the way to his bed.

So.

Now he's here, throwing it all away and taking things back and logically I know that's what he's supposed to be doing… but it hurts.

And I'm just not ready to let go… and I don't think he is, either.

"What's he pissed off about?" Emmett asks, walking in the room, just as Edward is walking out, with my shoebox and a determined look.

"My things," is all I say, and Emmett looks over his shoulder and sees the box Edward is carrying away.

"Ahh. He's angry. It happens. Hey, let's sneak into the movies, there's a—"

"Emmett… he's throwing me away," I croak out, and Emmett rolls his eyes and sighs.

"I never liked that guy, anyway," he mutters.

"It never could've worked, right? Me and him… it never really would've lasted anyway, right?" I ask Emmett, but I know he doesn't know the answer to that.

**Dear Isabella-**

**Okay, here's me being kind of an asshole, but you know how you always start these huge projects with these grandiose plans to become the next great so-and-so? Tap dancing. Cupcakes. Pumpkin carving. Sommelier. Boutique mardi gras beads. Then I'd get pissed off at the piles of unfinished shit in the house, and you'd tell me that when a thing is done, you're done?**

**Well, I took a page right out of your book today.**

**This thing with us? I know it's been done for a while now, but I also think I'm finally done. Mother says I'm in denial (and she said that last charcoal drawing you sent her was "hauntingly beautiful", by the way- just thought you'd want to know, and she also never hated you but that's a different story for a different day). Anyway, she said I should just take a page from your book and leave the Bella pile be. Maybe she's right.**

**But I'm doing it my way. I'm throwing the Bella pile out, not leaving it to get all dusty and ridiculous in some corner of the living room.**

**Don't be horrified. I could feel your anger at seeing me get rid of it, but you know me- rip the band-aid off. Don't be mad. It's just stuff. It's still out in the garbage bin, if you want it.**

**-E.M. Cullen**

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

**Hello, everyone.**

**Yes, this story is angsty. Apparently, some people have stopped reading due to the angst factor. D: If you'd like to wait until it's finished, this is a good point at which to stop.**

**If not… rest assured that the story is already completed, and we are consistently updating over at A Different Forest. As in… every other day. Right now, it's up to chapter 8. 9 is getting posted tomorrow, as soon as I wake up.**

**Why do we do this? Because we want you to go check out the website, of course. Or you can continue to read here on ff; we're still updating frequently here. Four updates in 16 days ain't bad, yo.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hi! Enjoy. Thank you to mcsmirkle for her generosity.**

The second time I saw Emmett McCarty, he was yelling at Edward. And Edward was yelling at him.

And it shocked the hell out of me.

It was exactly thirty-seven days since the big, final goodbye between me and Edward. He hadn't gone outside in thirty-three days, so I was kind of excited. Curious about what had gone on inside of his mind to get him to tear through the house that morning.

He had dug through the ever-growing pile of newspapers stacked on our kitchen tables— he tore through them, looking for something; then he'd discard them, casting them over his shoulder or to his feet until finally, he found whatever he was looking for.

I watched him spread the paper open on the table and he hovered over it and stared with wide, red eyes. His palms crashed down hard on the table and his arms shook and he let out a string of curse words— he hissed them. He spat them.

And then he tore all of the cushions off of the couch until he found his keys, forgotten and wedged inside.

Then we were in the car.

He drove too fast, but then, he had always driven too fast. Only one white-knuckled hand was on the steering wheel and for a second… for one split second, I thought he was going to drive us off of a bridge or into a building. I thought he had finally given up and I turned to him and said his name over and over again, loudly. I screamed at him and I begged him but he kept driving manically, his eyes bloodshot and black, one hand fisted in his hair.

Then just like that, the car jerked to a stop. He threw it in park before braking completely and he plunged out of his seat.

The keys were in the ignition and his car door was wide open and we were at a cemetery.

I followed him, keeping my eyes on his tensed, wide shoulders. I focused on the line of sweat bleeding through his shirt, right between his shoulder blades.

He scanned the names on the crypts with his wild eyes, then stopped and turn to a stone in front of one inscribed _Emmett McCarty—April 14__th__, 1976—June 18__th__, 2004._

June 2004.

Edward had gone mad, I was convinced of it. June 18th 2004 was _my_ day— who the hell was Emmett McCarty, and why the fuck is Edward— and then Edward was talking. To the crypt.

"I'd slit your throat if I could…" he said, quietly. "I don't know who you were… but I know you're better off dead. You were a reckless fuck and you were a life taker. And she was _good_… my Bella-- my _baby— _she was _life_…"

"Who's this guy?" a deep voice came out from behind me, and I turned to see a nice-looking guy with an imposing stature— big and broad, walking up to the crypt. He wore a navy blue T-shirt and a pair of faded jeans with a hole in one knee.

He scratched at his mop of black, wavy hair and then… he looked right at me.

Not through me or over me or to my side— he looked _at_ me.

My eyes caught his and we both froze. His blue eyes flashed before me for the second time ever. He looked different in the daylight, but it was definitely him. I remembered the way his eyes widened for one split second that night— for that half a second we met eye-to-eye before spinning away from each other and the metal and the glass blinded us both.

"You!" I shouted and pointed a finger at him.

"You!" he shouted back, incredulous and suddenly angry. And I was just shocked he responded to me at all.

"Can you see me?" I squeaked.

"This time, yeah," he said, and his eyes narrowed.

"You killed me!"

"_You_ killed _me_—"

"You hit me! With your big fucking heap of a monster car—"

"You were jaywalking! You—you're _a jaywalker_!" he said, and pointed a big, meaty finger at me.

"No one uses crosswalks! You were _flying_ buddy, you—"

"You. Were. Jaywalking."

"I was—"

We were both interrupted by Edward, who was oblivious to us just behind him.

"Every morning when I wake up, I'm… _jealous _of you. Almost as much as I hate you, I'm jealous of you. You died. You killed her and then you got to die, too, right along with her…"

Emmett walked up and got in Edward's face, but Edward saw right past him, his eyes still locked on Emmett's crypt.

"Jealous? Look, psycho, your girl killed _me. _I wish it was you who died with her, too, asshole—"

"Don't call him that!" I shouted at Emmett.

"And every morning," Edward continued to the stone, "I wish you hadn't died, so I could kill you myself."

"Please, what does this guy weigh? A buck sixty-five? I would've knocked your ass out in ten seconds flat," Emmett said, taking a step back and appraising Edward.

"He can box," I said, defensively. "And he weighs one-seventy-two— all lean muscle."

"Whatever. He's angry at the wrong ghost. Does he know you were jaywalking?"

"He knows no one uses crosswalks and you _hit me."_

"I swerved! I barely clipped you— you were just weak! And if I didn't swerve, I'd be alive right now, thank you very much, you jaywalking pedestrian."

"You were going way over the speed limit—"

"Ten over! Everyone goes ten over—e veryone knows ten over is the _real_ speed limit," Emmett said, then he leaned past Edward to brush imaginary debris from the front of his crypt. "The font is all wrong on this. I'd like to have Olde English, I think."

"At least you have one. I'm in an urn in a drawer over at St. Mary's," I said.

"That's fucking creepy."

"Maybe. But your body is in there all decaying and nasty—"

"Not yet. I supervised my own embalming. It was well done."

"That's disgusting."

"No. Disgusting was the autopsy. As was it sad, because you know what? I was the picture of health. Strong, plaque-free heart—"

"Ew."

"The point is, I would've had a long life. If you didn't jaywalked."

"It wasn't my fault!"

"Yes, it was."

Just then, Edward took a deep breath, his chest bowing out and making a slurping, kind of choking noise.

"If he spits on my grave… I'll…"

"What can you possibly do?" I asked.

"I'll be really pissed off."

"Right. Well. He wouldn't. Edward wouldn't do that."

"Yeah, he seems sane and composed," Emmett said flatly. "He talks to crypts and dead people—"

"And you heard him, didn't you?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest and making my point.

Edward didn't spit on Emmett's grave. We watched as he made a slow, tight fist, then very gently touched his knuckles to the wall of the crypt.

"Are you burning in hell?" he whispered.

It was quiet, dead quiet for a few seconds. It seemed like the trees stopped rustling and the birds stopped chirping and Edward stopped breathing.

"That was just mean," Emmett finally said, then Edward turned to go and I followed him.

And Emmett followed me.

And that's pretty much how Emmett and I met—the second time, anyway.

**Dear Isabella-**

**So I went to ****his**** grave today.**

**I wanted to kick it. Claw it, punch it, spit on it. Take it down.**

**But it won't bring you back.**

**Nothing will. I know that.**

**He broke our heart, Bella. Or stole it.**

**We didn't have enough time.**

**God, I see people happy and walking and holding hands, but I want to shake them, shake their happy and shake their love and scream at them that they don't know, they don't have the time that they think they do.**

**At church last Sunday, Fr. Edward put his palm on me and acted all concerned, murmuring platitudes and offering survivor's grief meetings, and all I wanted to do was ask him what plan God had for you, the planless. Instead I stood there, empty and thinking about our fucking shoebox of firsts in the rusty trashcan that I never replaced like you had asked me to.**

**This is stupid. Why, why, why. Why am I doing this, talking to you? Jasper says it's because I'm an emotional desert and you were my cool drink of water. The fuck does he know, anyway?**

**No more letters. This can't be healthy.**

**I miss you.**

**-E.M. Cullen**


	6. Chapter 6

"It's been six months since the accident. Let. It. Go," Emmett said.

"He can't," I snap, but Emmett is looking at Edward, who is sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at nothing.

"I wasn't talking to him. I was talking to you," Emmett said.

"Go away, Emmett, it's a bad day here… just—"

"Come with me. I want to show you something," Emmett says, and he goes to look out the window.

"No, I don't want to leave him—"

"Yeah, because you're helping him so much. His vegetative state is really an improvement from the wall punching and the insomnia—"

"Shut up, Emmett. He needs me," I say, and Emmett turns sharply and crosses the room so his big chest is in my face, then he bends his knees so I'm looking right into his eyes.

"_He can't have you_," Emmett says, slow and harsh, like it'll sink into my head if he gets nasty enough.

"Why are you even here, Emmett? Shouldn't you be watching Rosalie do pilates or something?"

"Why am I here? Because of my damn do-gooder conscience."

"_What_?"

"Listen… there's a better place for people like us— for people like me and you—"

"I'm. Not. Leaving. Him."

"Yeah, I gathered that. But, have you asked yourself _why_?"

"Because I love him! Because he needs me—"

"He doesn't know you're _here_. You're not doing anything for him— look. Have you entertained the idea that he can't let go… because you can't?"

"It's only been six months! You act like—"

"Listen. Come with me. Please. I just want to show you something, then you can come right back here and watch him stare at the wall."

Ten minutes later, we're in an old plantation-style house watching a leggy blonde dance to awful club music while she vacuums.

"This," Emmett says proudly, "is my wife."

"This is Rosalie?" I ask, finally putting a face to the name I've heard him utter more than a million times.

"In the sexy flesh," Emmett says, his eyes narrowed in love and lust on Rosalie.

She turns off the vacuum with a tap of her bare toe and kind of dances around, waving a dusting rag in the air.

"She's a shit housekeeper," Emmett says, pointing to a corner of carpet Rosalie neglected.

"She's beautiful," I whisper.

"Absolutely," Emmett agrees. "Have you ever seen an ass like that?"

"Okay, okay," I say, thinking of Edward back at our house. "Get on with it."

"She loves me. No less than she did the day I died. Hell, maybe even more."

"She doesn't seem too heartbroken," I say as Rosalie shimmies to a trophy case, armed with a can of Pledge and her rag.

"Well, she used to cry a lot more. And she stared at pictures and asked herself 'What do I do?' over and over again," Emmett said, stepping up, so he was practically flush with her back. "Atta girl," he says, when she dusts off a football trophy engraved with his name and _Class of 1993_.

"But she got over you?" I ask.

"Hell no. You don't get over Emmett McCarty," Emmett says, looking mildly insulted. "But, she figured it out."

"Figured what out?"

"We're meant to be."

"Clearly not. You're dead," I say.

"True. You killed me—"

"I did not kill you!—"

"_Anyway_," Emmett says, "I'm dead. So what? That doesn't mean we're not meant to be. It doesn't mean we won't be together again someday. She won't live forever. Sure, the waiting sucks. But it'll happen. We both have faith in that. We both believe that."

"You can't possibly know that—"

"Of course I can. Me and this girl right here, we are destined. There is no other way. Even your careless jaywalking couldn't undo something like me and Rosalie."

"Emmett. That's a sweet sentiment, but you can't know—"

"This. Right here. Is your problem with comatose Romeo."

"_What_?"

"You were _never_ sure."

"I am sure I love him. I am sure he loves me. I've never been more sure of anything—"

"Not the point. Love, shmove. I love that football trophy, but I'm not sure I'll be with it again. I'm not sure I'll ever touch it again. I'm sure about Rosalie. Because it would've worked. Forever. It was meant to be. And it still is. It just got detoured, is all."

"Edward was sure," I whisper.

"Was he now?" Emmett asks, raising an eyebrow and I nod.

"I was always saying and always thinking… we're too different, it will never work. But he never understood that. He was always just so sure that it would because it did…"

"So."

"So now I'll never know," I shrug and Emmett grits his teeth and growls at me, frustrated.

"Either you're an idiot or you weren't meant to be with Edward at all. Maybe that's why you won't let go. If it's meant to be, there will be—"

"Spare me the 'if you love something set it free' speech, Emmett."

"Not where I was going. Listen. You need to let him go, so he can _live_. You need to either walk away with the idea that it was _never_ going to work or you need to walk away knowing it will _always_ work. Eventually. Because _he_ needs to let go. Because _I'm_ ready to move on."

"What do you have to do with any of this?" I ask. "You're free to do whatever you want."

"Do-gooder conscience," he says, jabbing his chest with his thumb. "We took each other out. I can't just leave you here in all of your emotional confusion and obviously, you can't figure anything out on your own."

"What are you saying? What do you want from me?" I kind of huff out, getting frustrated. "Why are you suddenly turning into Yoda on me? I don't understand whatever sage-like shit you're spewing—"

Emmett puts his hands in his hair and actually tries to kick the trophy case.

"Listen. He's stuck because you're stuck. You just said it. He _knows, _Bella. He knows you are the one for him. You don't. You never did. He never got a chance to prove that to you— he never saw you realize it and now, all of the potential is lost and just hanging in the air around him. You have to figure it out. Because either way, you'll both be able to move on. You either have the faith or you don't, kid. Figure it out."

"How? How can I know, now? I'll never have the chance."

"You go back to that house. You think, concentrate very hard, meditate or some shit—I _don't know_. But come up with an answer. Because none of us can go on like this much longer."

"Well, how do you know? What makes you so sure? I mean… maybe Rosalie and you weren't meant to be. Maybe that's why—"

"Shut your face. I already told you. Faith. Rosalie will go on. She might marry someone else. She might have a hundred babies that aren't mine. But Bella, that doesn't change what's meant to be. In the end, it's me and her. I know it. As sure as I know the sky is blue and I'm deader than a doornail, I know that," Emmett says, his voice rising and his eyes turning dark.

"How?" I shout, irritated and lost.

"Figure it out," he snaps back. "And go. Now, please."

"Emmett…"

"Bella. I know I'll be with her again, but sometimes it's hard still. For both of us. Please… I need a second," he is saying, much quieter now, and his eyes are on Rosalie, who is slowly running her cloth over a framed wedding portrait, featuring Emmett and herself.

The want and the love and the frustration written on Emmett's face is so intensely intimate as he's watching Rosalie that I don't question him anymore, even though I want to.

Instead I head home, to think about what this could mean.

**Dear Isabella-**

**I'm so very tired.**

**I know it's been a while since I've written, and I feel stupid picking up this pen you used to guard like it was made of diamonds or Abba Zabbas, but I just can't seem to find a reason to give a shit about much anymore.**

**Maybe it's guilt.**

**This woman at work has been making eyes at me, and I feel bad that it made me feel slightly less shitty than usual. **

**I know, I know. Her name is Kate ("call me Katie", she says). She's nice. Pretty. Adorable, more like. Great legs. Not you. **

**Not Bella.**

**I know it won't work out, so I just nod at her and call her Kate. **

**And just how do I know it won't work?**

**Because you haven't let me go. I feel this… uncertainty about everything. I don't even know if I'm making much sense. **

**Can you just let me go?**

**Please. I need it. You died, and it's like I died, too.**

**I hate this. I was never so philosophical before I met you. I just-**

**We need to let go.**

**-E.M. Cullen**


	7. Chapter 7

When I get home, Edward isn't in the bedroom anymore and I hear a familiar thud.

Thud… thud… thudthudthwapthud… thud…

I go to the spare room and then I just stay against the wall and watch him. I should be glad he got up today, but when he gets like this… it's harder to watch sometimes.

He's taken over.

He's immersed in so much anger and despair— like he's stuck in this violent zone. His focus is intense and it's hypnotic but nerve-wracking to see.

He's like a machine.

I watch his arms fly and wonder why he bothered taping his knuckles at all. His hands always end up split and swollen when he gets like this, despite the dumb tape.

The bag swings and his shoulders tense and fall, tense and fall and finally he grabs both sides of the bag and lets his forehead rest on it, dripping, but not quite spent.

"I'm pissed off you threw my stuff away," I say, and his breathing is still heavy and I see a drop of sweat fall from a lock of his dark hair onto the punching bag. "You were always saying, 'It's junk Bella, throw it away…' but I held on to it anyway… shit like that never meant anything to you. You could let go of anything… so, Edward, can you let go of me? Is it me, did I…"

Edward pushes off from the bag and pushes his taped hands into his eyes and swears very softly and under his breath. Then I follow him to the bathroom.

"I can't… really let you go," I whisper while he un-tapes his hands. "What if I do? What if I let go… and you _do_ move on and it wasn't me and you after all? What if you find out we weren't meant to be? Then I lose you. I can't… or, okay. What if we _are_ going to be together in like, fifty years? That might almost be worse, because, geez, then I'll _know_. There will be all of this unfulfilled potential that we never got— no. Emmett is wrong. I'm staying. Right here. With you," I say, nodding my head for emphasis. "I'm almost glad you can't hear me right now. You'd tell me to shut up. And that I'm rambling. Or that I'm wrong."

Edward tosses the tangled, balled-up tape on the counter and puts the heels of his palm right at the edge, then leans forward and peers in the mirror. We both stare at his tired, heavy-lidded eyes.

"Jesus, Bella. I look _old_," he sighs and I beam, because I love when he talks directly to me.

"You do not," I say, pretending he can hear me. "It's been a hell of a few months is all."

"I'm getting older… and you aren't."

That makes me freeze.

_Time_ is passing. Without me. He is living. Barely, but he is. He keeps adding hours and days and weeks and months under his belt, and I'm not.

He will grow grey hair, right before my eyes. His back will hunch and his skin will wrinkle and he'll do it all without me.

And I can't stop that.

A rapid panic kind of sets in and I want too much and too badly to have him hug me closely. I suddenly and desperately miss the way his arms feel and the way he can make everything okay, just by saying "it's okay."

"Say it's okay," I say, but he just says fuck and turns to turn on the shower.

I close my eyes tight and try to think back very hard to a time when things were whole.

_September 4__th__, 2003_

"Who makes business calls at 9:30 at night?" I asked, but mostly to myself, because Edward was on the phone.

"Apparently not many people. I'm on hold," Edward said.

"Oh. Hey, guess what?" I asked, plucking his boxing gloves from the coat rack near the door. Sometimes Edward went to the gym after work. I didn't mind when he did; he'd come home sweaty and kind of swollen and we'd shower together. He said he preferred showering at home instead of the gym, but I always suspected he just preferred showering with me.

We were in his office. I'd brought him dinner because he was going to be home late and I was bored and lonely. I walked to his desk, tossed the gloves in his lap, and held my hands out. He cradled the phone between his shoulder and ear and helped me slip my hands in the gloves.

"Well, what?" Edward asked when I was gloved up.

"Gran said he saw the cops and an ambulance pick up that crazy girl yesterday. You know, the one with the hacked hair that talks to herself? Gran said she was screaming that she was _not_ talking to herself. That she was talking to _dead people_. How creepy."

"Maybe she's not crazy," Edward said, and leaned forward to tap his bare knuckles to my gloved hand.

"I think that episode clearly proves she is," I said.

"Well. She talks to somebody, that's for damn sure," Edward sighed. "Maybe she isn't crazy."

"Whatever. Stop being so non-judgmental. It makes me look bad," I said, then I slammed the gloves together, knuckle to knuckle, and started hopping around the back of him.

"The problem with you, Bella, is you have faith in nothing you can't see."

"Yeah, I'll work on that," I said flatly and rolled my eyes.

"Marcus, Edward," Edward said then held up a finger, letting me know he was no longer on hold.

"Wanna spar?" I asked, lightly jabbing the back of his neck.

"The spreadsheets are all fucked up. I can't read this shit and I don't have time to waste trying to decipher it," Edward said into the phone, ducking his head from my mock punching. "When I request a particular format, there's a reason why…"

He went on and I jabbed his left shoulder blade.

Edward quickly switched the phone from his left ear to his right, and cradled it on his shoulder. He reached back, fast and blindly, but caught my wrist.

I cackled out a laugh and tapped his cheek with my free gloved hand.

"I need all this shit by morning. Leave a memo for Caius and I want to get going on the hedge fund report by the end of the week— I'm up to my fucking neck in this shit, and if I get backed up anymore…"

I tapped his jaw.

He swatted at my hand and kept talking.

"If there's any question, don't email it, I won't be here, call my cell…"

I tapped his cheek and he jerked and tried not to smile.

"That's a nice serious business face," I whispered, pursing my lips against a burgeoning smile and furrowing my eyebrows.

Somehow he managed to capture my other wrist and I was stuck.

I stood right next to him, above him, while he used two hands to hold both of mine and balanced the phone and kept chewing someone out.

I blew lightly at the top of his hair and he ticked his head to the side, annoyed, so I kept going until his face finally broke out into a full, one-dimpled smile.

"By seven tomorrow," he said into the phone, and the smile on his face didn't match his ornery tone at all.

Quick and sharp he snapped his head up, making the phone receiver fall into his lap and I didn't even have time brace myself.

"Paybacks," he declared and I was instantly snapped over, wedged between his open legs and the desk.

"You wouldn't," I laughed, bringing both gloves up to cradle his face.

"Didn't you just hear that phone call? I'm ruthless," he deadpanned before a wicked smile unfurled on his face.

He lunged forward off of his seat and I shrieked a laugh and turned to escape by climbing over the desk. Edward caught my left ankle and my right hip simultaneously and the papers strewn across his desk went flying.

I sat still for a second, assessing my predicament.

"Still wanna spar?" he asked, still holding me tightly.

"Well, this is hardly fair," I said, face down to his desk. "I mean, technically, don't these things go by weight class? I should have some kind of handicap or at least a ten second head start— what the hell is this?"

I was inches from his desk calendar and my eyes zeroed in on the week of my birthday.

September thirteenth was marked _B's Day_.

Which was fine. It was the surrounding marks that bugged me.

"It's a calendar."

"I know it's a calendar. Why the hell does it say 'NYC' on September tenth through the fifteenth?"

His grip kind of loosened and then his hands fell away all together. I turned over and straightened myself so I was sitting on his desk, facing him.

"Well?"

Edward leaned back in his chair and sighed.

"I have to," he whispered, not sheepish, more just tired.

"You've missed my last three birthdays. Edward, since we've been together, you've been out of town on my birthday," I said.

"We always celebrate."

"That's not the point."

"What's the point then, Bella? I'm a grown-ass man with a job. I can't reschedule a multi-million dollar business venture for a birthday party."

My eyes narrowed and my lips tightened and just like that, things had turned nasty.

"So, your daddy says jump and you fax him right back and ask exactly how high? You implied _I'm_ acting childish? You still take orders from your _father—"_

"I never said you were acting childish—"

"You referred to yourself as grown. And then you sneered when you said birthday party, like it's just nothing, like it's—"

"I won't argue facial expressions with you, Bella. I never called you childish. Get over it. And I don't take orders from my father, I do what my boss asks of me—"

"Bullshit. That's bullshit. You _know_ it's bullshit and I'm sick of _listening_ to your bullshit," I said, crossing my arms over my chest and raising my eyebrows.

Edward looked down at his loosened tie and kind of played with the end for a second before he spoke.

"_My_ bullshit?" he asked quietly, without ever looking up. "I'm busting my ass just trying to make something _good_ and _stable_ for us… and you're worried about a birthday that we can celebrate before or after."

"This… we don't work. And that's exactly why," I shouted, just to contrast his quiet voice.

Edward rolled his eyes and sighed before letting his head fall back on the headrest.

"Here we go," he breathed out. "As soon as we differ— as soon as there is _any_ kind of conflict, you start with this we don't work shit."

"Work, money—that's the kind of shit that matters to you—"

"And birthdays matter to you more?" he asked flatly.

"It's not about the _fucking birthday_! The birthday is a metaphor for our whole relationship! This one particular instance just represents everything that is wrong between us. We want different things. We're motivated by different things, Edward," I yelled, hot tears now tickling my chin. "We're going two separate places, our goals are different—"

"What the hell are you _talking_ about? Newsflash, Bella. Relationships take work. And effort. And compromise. You have to _make_ them work."

"Thank you, Dr. Phil. I'm going to file that away and work on it. I definitely need relationship advice from a guy who fucks on his desk more than his own bed—"

"Stop it," he said, his eyes finally snapping up to meet mine. "What do you want? What, Bella, would you have me do in this situation? Stay home for your birthday and just disregard everything I've been working on for the past few months?"

"It's. Not. About. The. Birthday. You're not listening, Edward— I love you. I want you. You're _all_ I want and all that other shit doesn't matter to me like it does to you and… I don't like being your second priority."

"Second? It's all for _you—"_

"For me? It's not for me. I don't need someone with a high-paying job. I don't need fancy things and—"

"Ever since I can remember, my plan in life was to grow up and take this company over. My father built it from the ground up. It's my legacy, but more than that now, it's a means to support you and any kind of family we may have one day. It's something to pass on to my own children someday and _that's_ why I bust my ass here."

"And in the meantime you miss everything you work so hard for," I added, clipped and curt.

"There are certain things I can't give up. This is one of them."

"And me? You can give me up for this?" I asked, and regretted it. What if he said yes?

"Are you… are you giving me an ultimatum? Because, Bella… I won't play that with you."

"It's not an ultimatum. I'm saying the things you want and the things I want are too different—"

"No. You're saying if I don't give up a job that I love that I have to give you up."

"I'm not asking you to give your job or your career up. I'm not asking you to disappoint _fucking_ Carlisle. I'm just letting you know where I'm at."

"Which is where?" he asked, sitting up straight and slow, his eyes focused on me in a slow kind of gaze.

I took a deep breath and even then, I _knew_ I was sabotaging. I knew that even though it was killing me then… it could be worse ten years from that point.

"Not here," I rasped out, and it was stiff and a lie.

I slid myself off from his desk and stepped around his unmoving legs and willed myself to stare forward as I made my way out of his office.

I pretended to be asleep in our bed when he got home that evening, and in the morning when I woke, he'd already left for work.

For days we avoided each other. He went to work, he went to the gym, he slept.

I didn't bring him dinner and I didn't wait up for him.

I noticed he packed a bag and had a few garment bags hanging on the bedroom door ready for his trip and I knew that I'd wait until he was gone to pack my own things.

Before dawn on September tenth, I was sitting at the kitchen table, rigid and tense, staring at a cup of coffee.

Edward came in, luggage in tow, hair still dripping from the shower and rushing.

We still hadn't spoken at all.

He picked up my coffee, took three quick sips then put it back in front of me.

Quickly, he bent over and kissed my temple.

"Have a safe flight," I mumbled and he nodded and walked out, much slower now.

For the next two days I cried and I packed. I kept reminding myself it was better now, it would hurt less now than later… though I didn't really know how that was possible.

I was just _so petrified_ of this fall— of losing him, that I figured it was like ripping a band-aid off.

_Do it now._

On my own terms.

Fast.

Because on some level, some part of me always knew it would end too soon anyway.

Things this good don't last— and I couldn't bear to be blindsided by it someday. When a love like that lifts you so high, it's only logical that the fall from it will be that much worse.

I'd rather jump than be pushed.

Every last scrap of me was packed up from his home by 11:56 p.m on September twelfth.

"Happy Birthday, Bella," I sighed to myself as I picked my suitcase up and looked at the clock on the stove.

Then the front door flew open before I made it there.

I screamed and clutched my heart, wishing I had a gun or a pit bull and I suddenly really wished I would've told Edward I loved him before he left.

And came home to a murder scene.

But it was him standing there, duffel bag slung over one shoulder and a smooshed, rumpled-looking Hostess cupcake in his hand.

"What are you— you almost gave me a heart attack! God—"

"It'll work because I'll make it work. It'll work because there is no other way and no one else that'll ever do for either of us. It'll work because we're right," he said, and all of that intense focus, all of that awe-inspiring drive and hunger he had— it was all on me. "I promise."

Edward was unstoppable when focused like this.

He never made a promise he couldn't keep, and right then, I believed him. He was Edward and brilliant and determined and when he knew things like this… he _knew_ them.

His eyes were red-rimmed and circled in dark, his chest heaving from the run he had trying to get to me before midnight.

"Happy Birthday," he said and tossed the cupcake at me and I caught it in both hands and blinked down at it through tears.

The chocolate was smeared on the cellophane and the white frosting had bled out the sides.

"This is really gross," I half-laughed and half-cried.

"If the birthday was your metaphor… then let this be my answering metaphor. I'll always make it work. I'll always show up, and I will always do everything I possibly can. Just like right now; we'll always find our way back to each other."

"Yeah," I whispered and pressed my thumb into the smooshed cupcake.

He dropped the duffel bag behind him and I ran until he caught me up in his arms and hugged me close.

"Edward," I said into his shoulder.

"It's going to be okay. Always. You'll see," he said.

But now-- right here, right next to him but a world or a lifetime away, I was convinced now more than ever that he was wrong.

**Dear Isabella-**

**So, do you remember the Chicago thing? That big business deal you were never interested in hearing the details for?**

**Well. We signed the papers yesterday. **

**I did it. Years of strategy and ball-busting, all forming this one, solid venture.**

**We did it. You and me.**

**Because it was always for us, Bella. Always. I don't know that you ever believed that, but it was.**

**And it's a pyrrhic victory if I ever heard of one. I hate irony, you know that. All the wasted late nights, all the fighting. Because you're not here to drink this Bombay I've fixed us, one Dixie cup getting soaked through because it's yours.**

**I could go pour it out in front of the mausoleum, I guess, but that's stupid. Besides, I hate that place at night. Too maudlin. **

**I suppose Gran would appreciate the gesture if I did it over by our liquor store, but I won't do that to him. He misses you, too.**

**So, congratulations, baby. We did it.**

**-E.M. Cullen**


	8. Chapter 8

I've been sticking to Edward's side, determined to stay there for… well, for conceivably the rest of his life. I figure it's my way of making sure we keep that promise— to always find our way back to each other.

It'd be a hell of a lot better if he actually realized I was keeping my end up because I can tell he's definitely keeping his end up.

I can tell that I'm still the center of his world. All of his thoughts, all of his actions- they're all still focused on me, and I never anticipated that it would make me kind of sad.

Sometimes.

Right now, we're in his office and he's getting ready to order lunch. I can tell, because he's looked at his watch twice in the past ten minutes and he's starting to shift in his chair every four seconds. He's hungry.

"Ham and cheese on rye— with tomato," Emmett says from his spot on the floor near the door.

"Grilled chicken salad with Italian dressing," I say. "He had the ham and cheese on Tuesday."

"My money's still on the ham and cheese," Emmett says. "Remember last time? He ordered the salad and bitched out the deli for too much pepper."

"He was just in a bad mood. He's over it. He'll order the salad," I say.

"He's always in a bad mood. He'll order the sandwich and probably bitch about the pepper again, too."

"Pah."

"Care to place a wager?" Emmett asks.

I scoff at Emmett.

Money means nothing, and we can't ever really bet _anything _material, so it's usually pure pride on the line.

"I'm serious. If he orders that sandwich, you make up your mind. You decide if you have faith in this or not, and then either way we walk away. If he orders the salad, we stay and I stop complaining."

"One. No way. My mind is made up. I'm not going anywhere. Two, you can go whenever you want. I already told you that."

"I already told you that I won't do that. I can't leave you in limbo—"

"I'm not in limbo, weirdo."

"Whatever. If he orders the sandwich, it means I'm right."

"No, it doesn't," I scoff.

"Yes it—" Emmett stops when there is a light tap at the door.

"Yeah," Edward answers and _Jane_ walks in.

I sneer as she passes by and goes to his desk.

"Good afternoon, Jane," Emmett says, mocking a serious business tone. "Have you filed those files? Have you faxed those faxes? Did you graph those graphs?"

Edward looks up from his desk and doesn't smile back when Jane smiles at him, which makes me smile.

"I was just heading out for lunch. I thought maybe you'd want to come. I mean, get out of here. Get a bite to eat. We could go over this week's briefs. Or talk about non-work related things, if you need a break," Jane says to Edward.

My mouth drops open and I can feel that I actually _look_ dead— pale and stiff.

"Oh, shit!" Emmett laughs out. "This is a new development."

"He won't go," I say, and Edward sits back in his chair and looks up at Jane.

"I was going to order in…" he kind of trails off.

"Told ya," I say to Emmett. "Kate the secretary asked him out last month and he shot her down. He won't—"

"Come on. Let's get out of here. Just for an hour. I need the break and the company," Jane says.

"He said no," I say into her unhearing ear, then I turn to Emmett. "Does this girl pressure men to go out with her all the time? Sick," I say and Edward sucks in his bottom lip.

He is contemplating.

"You wouldn't," I say.

"He's gonna say yes," Emmett says.

"No," I say.

"Yep," Emmett says.

"Okay," Edward sighs.

Twenty minutes later _Jane _and Edward are sitting in the Poydras Diner while me and Emmett pace around their table.

"I miss bread. I think," Emmett says, eyeing their breadbasket. "At least I'd like to think I miss bread. I guess I don't, really. That's funny—"

"Really? Bread right now?" I ask him. "He's on a _date_. If I wasn't dead, I'd drop dead right now."

"He isn't on a… oh! She's taking her glasses off. Maybe he _is_ on a date," Emmett is saying and _Jane _tucks her glasses away in her dainty little purse.

"Well," _Jane_ sighs, "February's numbers will be all ready to be sent to accounting by next Tuesday."

"Good," Edward says and stares at his glass of water.

"Edward?"

"Yeah."

"I think you're doing really well, for what it's worth," _Jane_ says. Edward blinks at his water.

"Thank you," he finally says and _Jane_ makes this face like she's all concerned.

"I didn't know Bella too well," _Jane_ starts to say and Edward's face goes kind of white.

"Oh hell no she's not doing this," I say. "You didn't know me at all, _Jane."_

"But I know she was exuberant, and very beautiful," Jane says.

"Is she using my beloved memory to get in his pants?" I ask Emmett incredulously.

"Maybe she's just being nice," Emmett shrugs and Jane reaches over to put her hand over Edwards. "Yeah. No. She's definitely making moves," Emmett amends.

Edward doesn't move his hand or hers and he's still staring at the water.

"Whenever I saw Bella, I was always struck by how _full of life_ she was. It seems impossible that someone so… _vibrant_… could be lost so soon. I guess, Edward, if you ever need to talk about Bella, or anything at all—"

"I appreciate the sentiment, Jane," Edward says. "But you _don't_ know. You don't know much of anything about Bella or any kind of vibrancy or exuberance she had. Please don't do this."

He moves his hand out from under hers and Emmett whistles out from between his teeth.

"I didn't mean to offend you," _Jane_ says quietly. "Of course I don't know… but if you ever wanted to tell me about it, I'd listen."

Edward shakes his head stiffly and kind of rolls his eyes back.

"Or if you want to talk about you," _Jane_ says and I stand there, dying on top of dead. This is worse than having a nightmare— this is watching your darkest fear unfold and _knowing _it's reality.

And I don't even bother to scream anything out.

Edward stops looking at Jane and he turns his head to the left, to stare at nothing, and just when I think he's actually giving her the silent treatment, he starts to talk.

"About me," he whispers. "Well, let's see. I wake up in the middle of the night and sometimes, I swear to god, for a half a second I forget she's gone. I love it when that happens, because for that tiny little piece of a second my life is good, in a way it can _never_ be again. But I hate when that happens, too, because, after that little blip of _okay— _I have to remember all over again. And that, Jane, literally knocks the breath out of my fucking lungs _every time_ it happens."

"Edward," Jane and I say at the exact same time and Edward ignores both of us and takes a breath, like he's on some kind of purging roll now.

"People say the stupidest shit to me, like 'it gets better with time' and 'take your time' and you know what? All I can think is what bullshit that is because no matter what, she isn't coming back. Time will not bring her back and time will not make it as though she never existed and without her, I will never be a complete kind of _happy_. So. If she isn't coming back and I know how good it is _with_ her, then how will time change a damn thing?"

"It'll just be different," _Jane_ shrugs and she dabs a napkin at the corner of her eye.

"Well. Different will never be good enough for me. Not after I know what it's like to have her," Edward says, short and tight as he picks up a menu.

"You have to live, Edward," Jane says.

"And I do. I work and I love Bella. I eat and I miss Bella. I sleep and I want Bella. I live. I just do it for _nothing_, now. Now, I have less than I did before I ever even met Bella. None of it means a damn thing."

"You'll find will and motivation again, Edward. I think Bella would want to see—"

"You can't say things like that because you can't prove them," Edward says, and suddenly he looks kind of irate. "When someone dies, people always say 'oh, they would want this' and shit like that, but you know what? No one ever says the truth. For example, Bella would not be thinking 'oh, I'm glad Edward is out to lunch with Jane.' Bella would be thinking 'This better not be a date.'"

"He knows you well," Emmett says.

Jane sips her water and looks like she regrets asking Edward to lunch.

Edward sits back in his chair and he makes this face that I know really, really well. And I almost feel sorry for Jane because Edward is about to unleash misplaced frustration.

He chews at the right corner of his mouth for a second, his eyes narrowing in on _Jane._

"She wasn't really that selfless," Edward says, and I take offense while Emmett snorts. "She wasn't really graceful and she wasn't eloquent with words. She was a horrible cook and she had a short temper and an even shorter attention span. She talked in her sleep and picked fights when she felt insecure but maybe that's my fault. I feel like I could've done more to make her sure. I feel like there are a million promises that I'll never get a chance to make. I feel like I've been cheated. I feel like _she's_ been cheated. Hell. The whole fucking world has been cheated because _Bella… _isn't a part of it anymore. Because despite all the crappy things I just said about her, she was my _baby_ and quite possibly the only thing I'll ever really be sure of. And I just… sometimes I think to myself if… if right before, if there was any kind of thought in her mind at all before the accident, I wonder if she knew I'd do anything for her. I wonder if she ever still had doubts about us. Because she might've been amazing, but she was also wrong a lot of the time."

"I'm so sorry, Edward… I--"

"Don't be sorry, Jane. Just don't give me the 'it's time to get over it' speeches. When you're aware the best thing that will ever happen to you has already come and gone… you don't get over it. You just keep on breathing."

Jane shifts uncomfortably.

Edward sips his water and comments about a club sandwich.

"But you're still _alive_," Jane says quietly and Edward looks up at her slowly.

"I'm aware. Thanks," he says.

"That means you've got to live."

"I know," Edward says all stiff-like, then leans in, almost conspiratorially toward Jane. "What I said before, about promises I'll never get to make? I'm worried. I'm worried she never really believed in us and I never got the chance to prove it to her. Because I was right and she was wrong," Edward says, then he exhales deeply, shakes his head, decides on the club sandwich and asks Jane if anyone from Chicago had faxed the business expense report over yet.

"I _told_ you!" Emmett shouts out. "You've got to make up your mind. You've got to find the answer, Bella," Emmett says. "He's stuck, because you lived your life unsure. Un-stuck this sad bastard."

"I don't even know what I'm looking for," I say, irritated and hurting for Edward and for me and for all of the things that are never going to be realized. "I was going to marry him and have his babies and we were going to go to Italy, because that's where he wanted to go, and then to Amsterdam, because that's where I wanted to go. We were going to learn how to make a soufflé and we were going to get a puppy and we were supposed to be very old together. None of that will happen now, Emmett. So was I right? None of that was ever meant to be? Was I never right for him? How could he have been right if I'm not with him now?"

"Is that what you're saying?" Emmett asks. "That it never could've worked?"

"No! I'm saying… it was just going to kind of play out and now it can't—"

"Make a choice! All or nothing! Always or never at all!" Emmett shouts, now frustrated with me.

"It isn't like that—"

"The hell it isn't! Cowboy up, kid! He made you all the promises in the world—when are you gonna believe him?"

"Maybe… maybe if I see him move on… maybe if he finds someone else— but God. What if he does? What if I'm dead because I wasn't meant for him and—"

"Nope. Doesn't work like that."

"How do you know that?" I ask, sneering at Emmett.

"Rosalie dates some douche named Royce," Emmett says.

"She does?" I gasp.

"Yep. He's a cheeseball. I'm pretty sure she keeps him around because he's nothing like me. I don't care for him, but he treats her good and all I want is for her to be treated good. Still. Doesn't change me and Rosalie."

"How do you—"

"It isn't easy. Why do you think I'm here with you most of the time? I don't like to see that shit. But I know what's right. What's right is me and Rosalie and all the shit she does to pass the time doesn't matter… and I love her, Bella, so—fuck. I want her to find happiness wherever she can."

"I just want him," I whisper.

"He was right about that selfless thing," Emmett says drily.

Jane and Edward eat in silence for a bit, and then Edward does something… odd.

"You should know all of my passwords, for work logins," he says.

"I should?" Jane says.

"Yeah. Just… in case."

"In case of what?" Jane asks, her fork pausing midway to her mouth.

"Of anything," Edward shrugs.

"Well. What the hell does that mean?" Emmett asks, and we both stare at Edward in confusion.

"It doesn't sound too good, does it?" a high, feminine voice asks from behind us.

Emmett and I look at each other, our eyes growing wider with every passing second, then we turn to see the crazy girl who talks to herself, in all of her hacked haircut glory, smiling directly at us.

**Dear Isabella-**

**I'm sorry. So, so sorry.**

**What could I do? Everyone's always telling me to move on. Like, I just had a heart transplant and they're saying I should hop right up out of bed and go run a marathon. It's crazy talk.**

**Carlisle actually called a phone conference to discuss my- his words- "mopey, sad-sack attitude affecting the coworkers". Apparently, they've been complaining.**

**So when Jane asked- sorry, I know- I said yes.**

**I do not want to get into it. I'm sure you saw.**

**Isn't her teeny, tiny purse ridiculous? I almost laughed when I saw it. Your wallet wouldn't even fit in that thing, Bella.**

**-E.C.**


	9. Chapter 9

Emmett and I stare wide-eyed at this girl, the crazy girl who talks to herself. The crazy girl who Gran said got carted off by police and an ambulance a few years back.

The crazy girl who apparently _wasn't_ talking to herself all that time.

Emmett snaps his fingers in front of her face and her black, delicate eyebrows pull together in a scowl.

"Stop it," she says.

"Can we help you with something?" Jane nervously asks the maybe-not-so-crazy girl. Edward kind of smiles up at her, then kind of looks past her. He never thought she was crazy.

"No," Crazy Girl says, then she sort of jerks her head to the exit of the restaurant.

"Us?" Emmett asks tentatively and all I can do is stare at her.

"I… just came for the pie," the girl says to Edward and Jane, and turns to walk away.

Emmett takes off after her and I follow… because she can _see_ us.

This weird, little lady— she can _hear_ us.

And I don't know quite what to make of that or what that could mean, but if Edward saw her… and she saw me…

And then I'm practically running to keep up with Emmett and we skid to a stop when she plunks down into a booth.

Emmett leans across the table and stops two inches in front of her, and my jaw drops when she moves back and waves him away with her hand.

"Holy shit," Emmett says, and I've never seen him look so astonished.

She opens her eyes wide and screws up her face.

"Language," she says, in a near whisper.

"Oh my God," I blurt out and she looks up at me, slowly looks over her shoulder, then back at Edward and Jane.

"You should leave him be," she says, in her whispery voice. "Your hanging around is haunting him. Not in the traditional sense, of course, but—"

"_What_? Wait. What?" I stutter out. "How is this—"

"I don't know the whys and the hows, so please don't ask. I can see you. I can hear you. That's all I know," she says, looking down at the menu.

"Fuck. Well. What are your views on steroid use in the Major Leagues?" Emmett asks.

"What?" not-so-Crazy Girl and I ask at the same time.

"Look… what's your name?" Emmett asks.

"Alice," she says into her menu.

"Look, Alice. I haven't had a conversation with anyone other than myself, people who can't hear me, and the One Track Mind Wonder over here since June eighteenth, 2004. _Talk to me._ Please. Seriously. Tell me something that doesn't have anything to do with Edward Cullen."

"Um. Okay. Well, this morning I burnt pancakes in my apartment and I had to get out of there because now the whole place stinks like burnt pancakes. And later I have to go to—"

"Can you say my name?" Emmett cuts in. "I'm Emmett. When you start a sentence, say my name."

"_Emmett. L_ater today, I'm going to run to the bank."

"Yes! God, that feels good. Okay, now about the steroid issue—"

"Stop. Stop," I say, closing my eyes and shaking my head.

Alice keeps her eyes down at the menu and Emmett sneers at me.

"You- you can see and hear me. And you can see and hear Edward," I venture slowly, trying to wrap my mind around the entire thing… and thinking about how I can use it.

"No," Alice says sharply but quietly, and her little finger discreetly points at me from under the menu. "I won't do it. I don't communicate between you and us. Never again. I won't. Ever. You can both leave."

"Alice? That's your name, right? Alice, listen—" I say, internally wondering if it's too late to apologize for every time I called her crazy.

"No. Go away."

Emmett tugs my sleeve and I turn to him.

"Do you have any idea what this means?" I ask. "Do you have any clue—"

"I don't relay messages. Therefore, it means _nothing_ to you… but possibly good conversation to _you_," she says, briefly glancing up at Emmett.

"You don't—"

"I won't tell him you love him. I won't tell him you're sorry or where you left your will or your tax files. I won't tell him you 'didn't mean it' or you never liked his hair or you don't like his new wife. I won't pass on a hug or a kiss or _anything else. A_nd yes, I've been asked to do that_. _I won't tell him it's okay to move on and I won't tell him it's not. I won't say a secret word or an inside joke only the two of you would know. _I. Don't. Relay. Messages_," Alice says calmly, all while staring down at the lunch specials.

"But I… listen, just—"

"My advice to you? Let it go. Let him go. Did you know… you two know there's a better place? Right? You know that, I mean—" Alice says, and her hands and fingers twist together over the laminated plastic.

"_Yes,_ we know that," Emmett says. "Bella, however, refuses to leave. She won't leave the brooder over there--"

"It's not—" I cut in but then Alice cuts me off.

"I don't want to know any personal issues," Alice says.

"Listen, Alice, can you just—"

"No, I just can_not!," _Alice says, and her voice rises and suddenly, every eye in the diner is on us.

Or just her.

Yelling to herself.

Across the diner, Edward stands up and I get in Alice's face, but she closes her eyes.

"Please, please— that guy coming over here. His name is Edward. Please. Listen, just tell him, tell him that Bella—"

"No," she grunts, her lips pulled tight.

"Are you okay?" Edward asks, and now he's standing right here.

"Please, Alice," I plead and she smoothes her expression and smiles up at Edward.

"Oh! I'm fine, it's just… I'm a vegetarian and I _cannot_ have the chicken Caesar salad, and it says no substitutions on lunch specials. I- I was just… lamenting about that. I guess," she says.

"Oh. Okay," Edward says and he's eyeing her still— he's always had a bleeding heart for this not crazy after all girl.

"Alice, please—say my name, just once out loud—"

"Leave her alone," Emmett says to me and Alice's face screws up in agitation.

"You sure you're okay?" Edward asks.

"I'm fine. Thank you, Edward," Alice says, then her eyes widen precisely when mine do.

Edward kind of squints his eyes and puts his hands in his pockets.

"How do you know my name?" he asks.

I smile triumphantly and Alice opens her mouth to speak before she has a proper excuse.

"I… doesn't everyone know who you are?" she grins.

"No?" Edward kind of asks, confused.

"Oh. Right. Well. I heard your friend back at the table say it. I have excellent hearing. It's a terrible burden," Alice says and smiles brightly at Edward.

"O-kay," he says slowly and kind of returns a cautious smile.

"Why did you lie?" I spit out at Alice, but she just holds an awkward gaze with Edward until he kind of nods his head and turns to go.

Alice mutters something about the lunch specials being all wrong, then gets up and we follow her to the exit.

Well, I'm kind of running to keep up in her face and Emmett is taking these huge steps next to me.

"Please, will you just wait, please," I start saying all of these pleas to this Alice, like she could bring me back to life or like she could bring me back to Edward, and I still wasn't even entirely sure what I wanted from her. Just that I couldn't let the only hopeful thing I'd seen in months walk away.

She keeps walking and I keep following her and Emmett keeps following me and finally we are turning a corner and Alice suddenly stops and leans up against a brick wall.

She looks to her left and then to her right and Emmett starts looking all around, like he's missing something.

"I don't talk to alive people for… not alive people. Okay?" Alice says, looking down at her feet. "I am sorry you have unfinished business or whatever, but that's life. Or rather- death. I can't ruin my life anymore because you lived yours with regrets—"

"I don't want to ruin your life," I say, shaking my head fiercely and dreading the note of finality in her tone.

"But you will. Your type always does. I've been in more institutions and more hospitals than I care to admit. When you mosey on up to someone and say 'oh, your grandma wants you to know she's proud' or whatever— look. I wish I could help. But I can't. For many reasons. Do you really think if I marched up to that guy and said 'hey, your dead girlfriend wants me to tell you something' that he'd believe me? He'd get pissed, is what he'd do—"

"No, Edward isn't like that."

"Look, Bella. Even if he didn't get pissed- and he would- he'd think I'm crazy. He'd report it or call the police or the hospital and I just can't go back there. I won't. And… and… and I don't think it's very fair of you to ask me to do that," she says, and raises her chin indignantly.

"Edward wouldn't do that," I say, but it comes out more of a shout and then Emmett steps in between Alice and me.

"Lay off, Bella," he says.

"Emmett, move," I say and peer around his big, bulky side to see Alice again. "He wouldn't do that. I promise, he doesn't even think you're crazy!"

"Thanks," Alice says flatly. "But he would if I told him Bella was talking to me. No. I said no. I won't change my mind. Leave me alone before I get locked up again."

She pushes off the wall and I go to follow her, but Emmett wraps his arm around my waist and jerks me back.

"We can't let her walk away," I shout, but she is walking away. "Emmett, don't you realize what this could mean?"

"Do you?" he asks me. "It wouldn't mean anything. Even if he did believe her, and that's a longer shot than me restarting my heart or my rotting corpse getting a hard on, what would it accomplish? I mean, what exactly would you want him to know? You don't have anything new to say to him."

"I…"

"You what? You could use that poor girl to have mundane conversations with your boyfriend? She has her own life and shit, Bella. How the hell is pathetic Edward supposed to ever be _not_ pathetic if he's having conversations with his dead girlfriend via an ex-psych ward patient?"

"You wouldn't want her to say anything to Rosalie?"

"Hell no! Rosalie would kill that girl if she walked over and started talking shit like that. And not only that, Rosalie knows how I feel, or felt, or whatever the hell it is now. Rosalie's sure about me. And she's got life left to live. I don't want her wasting it on things she can't have anymore. I don't want her to be sad and want… something that's _dead_. Look. There's a reason why this kind of thing shouldn't happen. How can they move on if we're haunting them? How can they be happy if we're there, but not there at all? It'd be like dangling a steak in front of a starving bear. Always _just_ out of reach."

"No, Emmett. You're wrong. She- that girl has that ability for a _reason_. She can help—"

"How selfish _are_ you? Look at you, Bella! You want that girl to risk lock-up for you. You want Edward to hang on to you, even though he can't really _have_ you. You don't give a fuck about anyone but yourself-"

"You shut up! It isn't _like_ that! If I could just get some kind of… if I just knew for sure that I'd… that there's some kind of promise for us, for me and Edward…"

"Alice, Edward, me. None of us are gonna bring that to you. No one can give you the kind of answer or peace of mind you need. And you can't go around harassing people to. So stop it. Jerk."

"I am _not_ a jerk."

"That's exactly what you are. You're a selfish, fickle, no-faith-having, ungracious jerk," Emmett says, and he's jabbing a finger at me and shaking his head and smiling this unbelieving, snide smile.

"Screw off, Emmett! Go to your better place or wherever the hell you want to be!" I shout. "I'm so sick of you. You are _always_ just hanging around here, like you know everything but you know nothing. You don't know anything about me and Edward. And… and I think you just don't want to see Rosalie with her boyfriend. Your _replacement_," I shout. "I think _that's_ why you hang around me."

And I don't mean it.

I shouldn't be saying any of that because I don't mean it, but he doesn't get it and I don't stop. Because I want to hurt _someone_, so someone feels as bad as I do. I want to shake Emmett's confidence in Rosalie, so I'm not the only one who feels like they failed at love and failed their lover and failed at even dying.

I want someone else to feel as scared and lost as I do.

Emmett doesn't look scared or lost, though, but he does look as if I struck him very hard. His face is a mix of anger and sad and when he reaches one huge hand out to me, I actually flinch.

But he just puts his hand on the top of my head and tells me rather gently to fuck off.

And then he leaves.

**Dear Isabella-**

**Laughable. Jane actually suggested I keep some sort of diary about you. **

**I'm sorry I keep bringing her up. I feel like I should be underlining her name for emphasis because that's how you always pronounced it.**

**Silly, silly girl. When would you have ever realized that you were the one for me?**

**Probably never. You didn't think in those terms, did you?**

**It doesn't matter anymore. I suppose these letters have been "cathartic," ****Jane's**** words, not mine. ****Her**** suggestion was to help me get over you, I'm sure. I'm not blind, I know. She wants a piece of me.**

**How easy would it be if I could just sleep with her and get on with life?**

**I just know you're here somewhere, pretending to be indignant but still smiling away. No one does petty jealousy quite like you do.**

**-Edward**


	10. Chapter 10

Edward is staring out the window and I am right next to his side, staring out there, too.

"I saw that girl today, Bella," he whispers up to the sky, and if he'd just look at me instead of up there it'd be like we're having a conversation.

"She isn't crazy after all," I reply. "She isn't particularly helpful, either."

"She was yelling in a restaurant. Maybe you were right. If you were here, you'd tell me you were right," he sighs.

"No. You were right," I say flatly.

"I wonder… how many times were you right when I was so sure I was?" Edward says.

And I don't like that at all.

Edward is sure and confident, always— and even when I was positive that he was wrong, I still found some kind of steady comfort in the fact that _he_ was so sure.

He rubs the back of his neck and then he rubs his eyes. His knuckles tap three times on the window. He sucks in the corner of his mouth then quickly lets it go.

"I hate that you're gone. I hate that you were always the selfish one. And I hate that I drank out of a Dixie cup on a street corner with you. I hate that even though you always said it wouldn't work, I loved you so much anyway. Never once did I have some kind of doubt or fear it would end. I mean… the actual love was the high, but this fall might kill me. Maybe you were right all those times. I thought you were being dumb when you'd say it wouldn't last. I should've listened to you," he says, then pulls the cord of the blinds, so they drop on the dark sky.

And I'm pretty sure I have my answer.

And never, ever had I felt so hopeless until I thought I saw the hope fade out of Edward's eyes.

I crumple underneath the window and he walks right past me and I want him to tell me I'm stupid and wrong. I want him to tell me _he_ was right and this time, I promised myself I'd believe him, but he just sits on the foot of the bed and starts unbuttoning his left cuff.

This time, this one feels different. This feels like the permanent break up we never really got around to having and I _feel_ dead. For the first time ever, I actually feel lifeless.

I look to him and he's just sitting there, working on the right cuff now, staring at the wall.

I crawl over to the bed and I curl myself up at his feet. He flops back on the bed and lights a cigarette and we both watch the smoke swirl up to the ceiling in empty, hollow silence.

Time passes.

A little over two days, I think. He doesn't answer the phone or his messages and he doesn't go in to work. Carlisle leaves two messages and his mother leaves one. Jane pounds on the door and says she's going to call the police because everyone is worried, but Edward calls her phone, when she's right outside of the door, and tells her he's fine, that he just needs a couple days.

I sit by the window the entire time.

Emmett hasn't been in once.

I wonder if he's left without me.

I mostly hope he did, because then I could stay here forever, unbothered, and I can make me and Edward work, even in this fucked up, strange capacity.

I'll never leave him and even though he won't know it, I'll have kept us together.

After two days of chain smoking and staring at the glowing television, Edward gets up with what seems like a kind of determination.

Not like one of his trips to the bathroom or the kitchen… he gets up like he's got some kind of plan.

Abrupt.

He rummages around the kitchen and finds his cell phone on top of the microwave after pulling open drawers and slamming cupboard doors in a mad kind of haste.

He glances at the screen, and then he drops the phone on the counter. I look down to see a text or missed call that could've upset him, but all I see is the date and the time.

It's 4:18 a.m. on June 18th, 2005.

It's been one year.

He goes for the bedroom and I go with him.

I watch curiously as he opens the closet and reaches for a plastic bag on the top shelf, the shelf I could never reach.

His eyes are squeezed tightly shut and he turns to the bed and dumps the contents of the bag on the wrinkled, sweat-stained sheets.

Then both of us suck in huge, painful gulps of breath.

There on the bed is a black velvet box, a pair of gray sweatpants and a white collared shirt, all dotted and streaked with deep brown blood stains.

_June 18__th__, 2004_

"What should we eat for dinner? Frozen pizza or a half-stale bag of chocolate chips?" I asked Edward with my face in the freezer.

"The oven always burns the bottom of the pizza," Edward said. "Let's go out."

"But then I'll have to get dressed and brush my hair," I say, and poke at a bag of frozen peas and try to inconspicuously sniff my armpit.

"Because you're always so worried about your appearance in public."

"We can order in—"

"I want to go out."

"But if we stay in, we can just not shower and wear our underwear and eat on the couch," I say, looking over my shoulder at him.

"I'm already showered and you eat in your underwear on the couch every day, so compromise with me and get dressed. And put deodorant on, because yes, you do need some," he said, raising his eyebrows.

I shut the freezer door and raised my arms up in the air.

"Don't you love my woman-like musk?" I asked, reaching out to hug him.

He dodged my advance and took off for the living room. I ran after him and we came to a face off on either side of the coffee table.

"You're so gross," he laughed and I curled a finger at him.

"You like it," I said.

He reached out and flicked my forehead then snatched his hand away before I could slap it.

"I'm starving," I whined.

"You stink," he said.

"As is," I replied, gesturing down to myself.

"Yeah, I grasped that," he said, smirking at me.

I let out an incredulous shriek and he flicked my forehead again.

"You gotta be faster than that," he said when I missed his hand again. I darted around the side of the table to pounce on him and he caught my wrist and held it up triumphantly.

"Who's fastest?" he laughed.

"Ow! My hand!" I shrieked out in pain and he immediately let go, looking mortified.

I ran like a bat out of hell and laughed.

"Who's smarter?" I taunted from the other side of the room.

"That was really low," he said.

"Still. I win. Pizza or Chinese?"

"Bella?"

"What?"

"Think fast."

Before I could barely blink, something square and black was flying at my face. Instinctively, I caught the velvet box in one fist.

I unfurled my fingers and stared at the soft, pristine box on my palm, then looked at his smiling, pretty face.

"Edward. Edward? Edward, is there a ring in this box?" I asked slowly, while it felt like my head started floating slowly above my body.

"Yes," he answered and he put his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels, relaxed and watching me.

"It isn't a friendship ring, is it?"

"No."

"It isn't a mood ring either, is it?"

"No."

I nodded and licked my lips and stared some more at the box.

"Are you going to open it?"

"I can't."

"Why?"

"Because! Because… my armpits stink and my hair isn't even brushed—"

"As is," he repeated my words. "I want you as is."

"You want to marry me?"

"Well, I figure once we're married you'll never actually do all the paperwork it would involve to break up."

"You are, then, going to ask me to marry you?" I squeaked.

"I'm doing that right now," he laughed.

"No! I want to be… pretty when this happens! And, oh my God— we don't even have any Bombay—"

"Are you going to say yes?" he asked.

"Yes I'm going to say yes!" I cried and he came to me and I came to him and these fast little kisses passed back and forth between us.

I put my arms around his neck and pulled myself up, winding my legs around his waist.

"We can eat dinner in our underwear until we're seventy five," I said, breathless when his kisses found my throat.

"I'll let you kick my ass with the boxing gloves until we're eighty," he said, when I took over the kissing on his face.

"I'll bring you lunch every day at work until we're ninety, because you'll never really retire," I said into his eye.

"I'll strap on your tap shoes even when you're ninety-five and in a wheelchair," he said.

"And I love you," I said.

"And I love you."

I braced both of my hands on the side of his face and kissed him, long and perfect on his smiling lips.

"Now put me down, we need a drink!" I said, and when my feet hit the floor, my hands clapped over my mouth and I actually hopped twice. "I'm so excited I might pee my pants!"

"Don't," Edward said, flashing me his best disgusted-but-not face.

I picked up my house key from the coffee table and turned to go.

"Where are you going?" he asked and I tossed the unopened black box at him.

"To get the Bombay! We have to have Bombay here for this, don't you think?"

"Uh… sure?"

"You stay, change into your underwear and when I get back, you ask me and I'll say yes and we can spend all night doing it all over every flat surface of the house… or more realistically, we'll give it a really good go on the couch—"

"Thanks," he remarked dryly and I laughed and laughed and I was high all the way out the door.

I walked on that hot night with my arms up in the air and swinging at my sides. I walked with the most truthful, genuine smile any person has ever had.

I skipped when I should've walked and floated on the proverbial clouds under my feet. I giggled and sighed up at the black night and wrapped my arms around myself and I felt like no person has ever really been in love like this.

Surely, no one else had ever known this kind of excitement or potential or love— the world simply couldn't handle this kind of _happy_.

And half a block before the corner at the end of my street… I crossed. Or I tried to, anyway.

And of course, that's when I saw Emmett for the first time.

In the middle of all of that noise, grinding metal and an awful ringing pulse in my ears, I felt my chest go warm and I tasted warm _something_ in my mouth.

That noise was very loud, I can guess now. At the time I didn't feel much of anything. It didn't hurt. It actually felt like I was flying— I had flown through the air, but I didn't realize _why_.

See, at first I thought to myself, I was so damn high and happy that I'd actually take flight. Which is ridiculous, but it was the only thing that made sense.

And when I was finally still, I found I couldn't move very much of anything, but Edward was there. He was out of breath and it looked as if I was looking at him from underwater.

He didn't touch me, which I thought was odd, especially because I really, really wanted him to move me, but he was very careful not to.

He did say something, though.

"Always," he had said to me. "Bella, hang on," he'd said and he sounded like I'd never heard him sound before.

I'd never heard or seen Edward cry, but it sounded like he was. His voice was deeper than usual and it kept breaking.

He swore a lot.

And he promised me something, too, right before I slipped away.

_Always_ he'd find a way.

And now, we're both staring at an unopened ring box and some bloody clothes and all of it was for nothing.

**Dear Bella-**

**I need to let it go. I need to.**

**I- I didn't know. A year. It's been a fucking year.**

**One-fourth of our time together.**

**An eternity.**

**Or a week. That's what it feels like.**

**What have I been doing? Let's make a list, shall we?**

**-Seattle**

**-I learned how to make soufflé (sorry. Mother's misguided attempt to cheer me up.)**

**-lunch date**

**-moped**

**-drank**

**-?**

**I'm pathetic. Fucking pathetic.**

**I'm also nowhere ****near**** letting you go.**

**I took down the ring box. I think I should've left it there, but I don't know anymore.**

**It took me two hours to scrub your blood off my hands that night. There was this one spot under my left ring fingernail that no toothpick or pocket knife could reach, and I kept seeing it as a sign that you weren't really gone, or that it was a sign of something meaningful. And you know me, I'm not the superstitious type. But I don't know, Bella- when my heart broke- I think other stuff broke, too.**

**I just- I'm lost without you.**

**-Edward**


	11. Chapter 11

We're both staring at the mess on the bed. I kind of want him to open the velvet box. I'd never even seen the ring.

He picks it up and I step closer, but he doesn't open it.

He chucks it across the room and it hits the wall with a hollow-sounding thwack. Not very satisfying at all.

"Marry me," he kind of spits out then laughs at himself while his fingers tangle in his hair.

He leaves the ring and the bloody clothes and goes to the desk and yanks open the bottom drawer.

He pulls out a manila envelope and rips it open.

He pulls out some papers and just leaves them on top of the desk and I look down as he walks away.

The deed to the house.

"Edward, what the hell are you doing?" I ask and follow him to the living room where he snaps open his laptop, then paces while he waits for his email to load.

"June eighteenth," is all he says and I start to get nervous, because he has his focused, intense look on and there is a plan and definite intention in his head.

And I'm pretty sure I know what it is.

The computer takes too long to load and he tears back into the bedroom and grabs his wallet from on top of the dresser.

He flips it open, taps his driver's license once, and then he does something very curious.

He opens the top drawer of the dresser and nestled in his socks, where it always is, he picks up his never-used Platinum Mastercard, then he digs under the socks and produces his passport.

Then he shoves it in his back pocket.

"Uh. Are we taking a trip?" I ask, trying to stay calm.

"I.D., I.D., I.D.," he says, tapping his wallet twice and his back pocket once.

"Identification?" I ask, shaking my head. "Edward, what the _hell_ are you doing?"

We go back into the living room and he tells the computer to fuck off then reboots it.

"I hope you're ready to apologize. It fucking stinks in here, by the way."

I look up and Emmett is there, lingering by the couch.

"Emmett—"

"What's his deal today? He looks like shit," Emmett says.

"I don't know… I don't know _what_ he's doing," I say. "He has his passport and a credit card and he put the deed to the house on our desk and — I don't know what he's doing!" I say, my panic increasing with each word.

"He's doing what people in mourning do," Emmett says and waves his hand dismissively at Edward. "Listen. Tell me you're sorry already. I'm bored as hell, but I still have pride."

"I'm worried, Emmett— he's thinking something. He's planning something. Big. Like, imminent."

"After we figure this out, you have to say sorry to me," Emmett says, then he peers over Edward's shoulder at the computer screen. "Okay, what do we got? He looks rather unkempt today—"

"He has just been laying here for days and do you know what today is?" I ask Emmett.

"Of course I know what today is," Emmett says stiffly.

"And then he just got up, like, out of nowhere, and he threw the engagement ring I never even saw and he gets a credit card and his _passport _and Edward, I mean, he just wouldn't randomly decide to take an international trip. He's a planner. And then he puts the deed to the house on the desk. He just left it there. And now—"

"Now he's emailing Jane," Emmett says.

We both stare at the screen as Edward composes an email to Jane.

"What the fuck is that? Some kind of crazy code or—"

"No. Passwords," I say no sooner than Edward types out a description for the password.

Then four more.

At the end he jots a quick note to Jane.

"_Access to everything. All of my projects are now yours. Edward."_

"What? No," I say. "He doesn't… he lives for that job now."

Edward slams the top on his computer and Emmett turns to me, expressionless.

"His family doesn't live close to here, do they?" he asks.

"No. Why?"

"Does he have any friends? Anyone close to him— look, who is his in case of emergency person or—"

"What? I mean… why?"

"Because when I had that accident, Bella, they contacted my next of kin to identify my body because I wasn't carrying any identification. He knows nobody here and he's loading up on ID—"

"I don't understand," I say, but I do.

"He's left the deed to the house on the desk. He just handed over the last thing he cares about to Jane."

"He made me a promise," I blurt out.

Edward stares down at the closed computer for a few seconds then presses his fists into his eyes.

"What? What did he promise?" Emmett asks.

"That he'd find a way to make us work. And be together. Always," I whisper and Emmett's shoulders sag and his eyes close.

"We have to go. Find Alice. And fast," Emmett finally says.

"She won't _do_ anything—"

"She might. For something like this, she might. He might not believe her, he might not listen to her, but fuck it. Bella. You gotta try."

"Try what?" I ask and Edward picks up a pen next to the computer and goes in search of something else.

"What do you mean, try what? Only days ago you were begging her for _anything— _if he's going to do something stupid— she's our only hope to stop him. You _have_ to try."

"I… don't think it will work," I say slowly and Emmett's eyes harden into a cold stare on me.

"You don't want to stop him," he accuses and I turn my face from him, because maybe he's right.

"He promised," I say, and I'm aware I sound like the most horrid, indignantm selfish brat to ever have existed.

"You can't be serious," Emmett hisses. "What the hell is the matter with you?"

"If you thought Rosalie was on her way… if you thought that she was so close… would you stop her?" I ask.

Emmett sets his chin to his chest and his brow furrows at me and when he speaks, his voice is low and harsh.

"I would do everything I can with what little power I have to stop her. I want that girl to live as full and as happy as anyone has ever lived. I want her to have everything this world has to offer before she's done here, and that call isn't hers or mine to make. Just like it wasn't yours and it's not Edwards. And I want that for her because I _love_ her. And I know she'll come to me. But I can wait, because _that_, Bella, is what you do when you have faith and love."

"But maybe I could have it all…" I say and Edward has come back with a sheet of loose leaf paper and starts hastily writing.

"Fine. Stay here, live in your fucked up, Romeo and Juliet, sick, selfish world. I'm going to find Alice."

I look down at the note Edward wrote.

"_Dad. I'm done. I'm sorry. Edward."_

Emmett flinches and holds out his hand to me.

"Help me find her. Please, Bella. Help me find Alice. You _know_. I _know_ you know the right thing," Emmett says.

Then, in perhaps the oddest part of this already fucked up day, Edward goes back in the kitchen and we follow.

In silence, we watch him open the freezer, take out what must be a very old frozen pizza, rip the box open and toss it in the oven, with a dull clank.

"What the hell is he doing?" Emmett asks to nobody.

"Our oven always burned the bottom of frozen pizzas. We never figured out why," I answer, monotone and numb.

"What the—"

"That's what I was going to make. The last night," I shrug.

Edward sets the timer for twenty-seven minutes and then places his palms on the stove top and hunches over with his eyes closed.

"We have twenty-seven minutes," Emmett says.

"It won't…"

"Prove yourself, Bella. Today. Right now. You either believe him or you don't. Don't force his hand."

I stare at Edward, and I can almost feel him under my fingertips again.

I can almost taste his lips and his skin and I can almost feel him on top of me and I can't wait to laugh with him again and fight with him again…

But I know I have to wait.

Rather, I know what the _right_ thing to do is. Unfortunately, I don't necessarily want the right thing… but I had to at least try.

"Let's go," I say to Emmett.

**Dear Bella-**

**I'm done. I'm selfish and I miss you and I'm done.**

**There'd better be Bombay there, wherever it is I'm going.**

**-Edward.**


	12. Chapter 12

It takes us fourteen minutes to find Alice. She is standing in front of a window front, admiring something, and then she moves to take off like a bat out of hell when she sees me and Emmett running at her.

"Alice, please," I shout, but she keeps running and says nothing.

"It's different! It's not what you think," Emmett tries.

But she runs on and we keep running after her.

"Alice, it's life or death. I swear. Life or death," Emmett shouts and Alice stops dead in her tracks.

"Oh my god! Thank you," I blurt out and Alice looks past us and rummages through her purse, then pulls out a cell phone.

People look at her strangely as they pass by, then she puts the phone to her ear.

"What do you want?" she says into the receiver. "This better be important. It better not be the same bullshit."

Emmett and I both stare at her and it takes me a second to figure out that she's using the phone as a decoy to speak to us openly.

"I knew it, Alice!" Emmett says in relief, "I knew you're a good girl—"

"Spit it out," she says.

"I think… we think… Edward is going to do something stupid and awful," I say, not able to really say the words.

Alice's jaw clenches and she glares up at the sky.

"I'm not responsible for the actions of anyone else. Free will," she says.

"Alice, he could—"

"The ramblings of a crazy girl won't stop him!" Alice practically shouts.

"Just— can you get someone to stop him? Can't you call the police? Or anything?" Emmett asks.

"No. I just can't do any of that."

"Call in an anonymous tip," I say, desperate now.

"Then he'll do it tomorrow. Look. I'm sorry. Really. That's horrible. But I won't babysit a suicidal stranger for the rest of my life."

"Alice. _Please," _I beg.

"Life ends. Maybe I'm jaded for obvious reasons, but you can't control any of this. The dead cannot interfere with the living. It _isn't_ up to you. You guys… just… forget you ever saw me. I can't help you. I'm sorry," Alice says, but now she's almost whispering into the phone. "I've been down this road before. I can't help. Please go."

"You have to at least try, Alice. How could you live with yourself if—"

"_Exactly!_ How could I live with myself if I tried and failed? I won't be involved. He's… got his own mind and just… no."

I wring my hands and fingers together and don't even know what else to say and Emmett shifts and his expression flinches then he asks Alice the time and she flashes her phone toward him.

"Only nine more minutes," he says and Alice shoves her phone back into her purse and says she's sorry again.

And I stand still and watch her go.

"Maybe it's just meant to be like this," I whisper to Emmett. And maybe, just maybe… that's okay. The thing is- I know it's not right to want this.

I _know_ that.

But how could I not want him with me?

"We have eight minutes. And you're not giving up," Emmett says.

"Emmett. I can't stand there and watch him hurt himself—"

"You sit by and watch him miss you every day! Jesus, Bella--"

"Let's go," I huff and we run, we take off back toward the house and I know I should be running like his life depends on it.

But I don't.

Silently and selfishly, I'm imagining him touching me and talking to me. I'm thinking about how close this could be and most of me can't wait.

We tear in the house and Edward… simply isn't there.

Emmett barrels to the bedroom and into the bathroom while I stand in the kitchen and notice a half-eaten frozen pizza in the trash.

The bottom isn't burnt.

He took it out too early.

We're too late.

Or maybe just late enough.

"He isn't here," Emmett says, heading for the door.

"We're too late," I simply say.

"No," Emmett says, like he doesn't believe it and then speaks to himself in a rush. "Where the hell would he have gone to?"

I don't move an inch and I am kind of waiting for Edward to walk in and _see_ me.

Then I hear Emmett bellow my name from outside, from in front of the house.

I move to go and I wonder if he'll look… very bad. His body, I mean. I wonder if he'll be right there and then I'm running out the door toward Emmett's shouting.

All I see is Emmett and Emmett is pointing down the street, all the way to the corner.

And Edward is there, very much alive and standing right _there_. Right where a tree used to be, before Emmett and his big, stupid Jeep took it out last year.

One year to the day.

"Go," Emmett says and when I don't move he tells me to go again. "Bella. Go to him."

"What else can I do?" I ask Emmett.

"Whatever you've been doing all year. Just be there."

I nod and I go to him. I walk slow, conscious of heel-toe-heel-toe-heel-toe, just hoping he'll do whatever it is he's going to do before I get there.

But he doesn't. In fact, he isn't even moving. Well, his lips are moving. And then he says my name.

"Bella. I don't know why I feel guilty about this," he says and I have no idea what he's talking about. He takes a deep breath and puts both of his hands on top of his head, then drops them, limp and heavy at his sides.

"It isn't getting any better," he breathes out. "It just isn't. I keep thinking that you're out there somewhere, waiting on me and sad and unsure… and Bella. Some days I'm so pissed off at you for always having doubts. Because maybe I needed _you_ to be sure, _too_. I mean, did I fail? Are you out there somewhere, doubting still? I can't… just maybe I could sleep through the damn night if just once you would've shown some kind of… certainty."

He stops for a second and kind of kicks at the ground, then shakes his head and starts again, and I'm suddenly flooded with guilt.

And _love_.

More intense and more gripping than ever in my mortality… I feel for him.

"I'm in love with you," he says. "I'm always going to be in love with you. And you know what? I don't regret it. All that time, you were so fucking worried about the fall from this thing. From us. And you know… it did fall. We fell. It all went so _fucking_ wrong. And it was still the best thing that will ever happen to me, despite the nightmare that is now. And I hope, more than _anything_, I hope that somewhere, you feel the same way."

"I do," I whisper in reply.

We're apart now.

My greatest fear has come to fruition.

And still, I wouldn't trade the last four years of my life for anything—

Pain like _this_ is worth love like _that_.

His face turns to the sky, and his eyes open and he stares at the rising sun and I don't know what he'll do next, but suddenly I _want for him_.

I need him to go to all the places we said we would. I need him to laugh with his whole body, like he used to. I need him to go to ball games and eat burned pizza and drink Bombay and sleep through the night and put that brilliant mind to good work— and so I'm letting him go.

Because what's between us is _so_ strong. So strong I still have it in me, even though I don't even have a body. So strong that even though he can't see me or hear me, he still knows my thoughts.

So strong that it can't possibly ever _really_ be over.

I knew it then in that instant.

I can let him go because we can't be broken.

He— _we— _would find a way. Always.

"But I gotta go, baby," he whispers. "I can't stay anymore. I can't live _our_ life without you. I don't know what I'm doing. Maybe London? I don't know. But I know I'll have you again someday. In the meantime, that'll have to be enough," he shrugs, and then he tosses something on the ground with a light thud and a crinkle.

It's a smooshed chocolate cupcake wrapped in cellophane.

"There's your last promise, Bella," he says. "I'll find a way. Always."

"I know," I say, soft and sure and we stand there, quiet together until he kind of kicks the cupcake and his mouth turns up at one corner, no doubt remembering the very first promise cupcake.

Then Edward turns to go, scratching at the back of his neck and closing his dark-circled eyes.

"She knows," a voice says, and Edward kind of jumps at the sound of a voice and I turn to see Alice standing there.

She looks at me briefly, then turns her gaze back to Edward.

"She knows it," Alice repeats quietly and Edward opens his mouth to speak, then closes it again, and nods at Alice.

"Thank you, Alice," I whisper, but she's already walking away.

Edward pulls his keys from his back pocket and starts walking back toward our house. I stay at his side and one last time; I let myself pretend I'm really right there with him… and I know that the next time I see him, it won't be pretend.

He doesn't go back in the house; he simply gets in his car, but right before he shuts the door, he speaks.

"Bye, Bell," he whispers and the car starts.

"I'll see you later," I say and then, he's gone.

And I don't follow him.

I stand in that deserted driveway, a walk up to a life that doesn't exist for anyone anymore for a bit, and then finally Emmett reappears.

"Wanna get out of here?" he asks gently.

"Yeah. You said something about a better place?" I grin slowly.

"Come on, I'll show you how to use a crosswalk," Emmett says, and we head out to see about a better place.

The end.

**Dear Isabella-**

**I'm fine now. **

**That sounds bad, but I know you understand. I've taken up music again, aren't you proud? I was strumming some tune in a café here in Seattle, and do you remember when we joked about starting our own grunge band and how you wanted to stalk Chris Cornell? Anyway, there I was, singing out a nonsense poem you once howled at me while I was watching my Saints trounce the Giants (God, I was never so irritated with you as I was during Monday Night Football). So, for the first time in years, your words flowed from my mouth and I must've had some kind of smile on my face because I got several numbers scrawled on dollar tips that day.**

**So I came here to write you this one final letter.**

**Tomorrow, I go home to bury my Father. He wanted to be interred in the family mausoleum, so I'm going to drop off all of these letters to you after the service. I've been hanging on to them all these years, and the other day I just woke up and realized I didn't need them anymore. You were the one to hold on to tokens of our relationship, not me. But I can't bring myself to throw them out, and I figured it's more fitting that you be the one to hold onto them.**

**In many ways, I'm sad that I no longer feel that hopeless desperation. Sometimes I sit here chain-smoking (and I've switched from Reds, but dammit, I still hear your voice berating me in that caring but obnoxious tone, worrying for the state of my lungs and hollering shit you know nothing about like "squamous-cell carcinoma" and "metasteses") and I almost miss the loneliness, miss that empty shell that I was back home. Because that empty shell could only be filled by you, and you're no longer here. You poked a hole in me, and the stuff I shovel in to fill the emptiness just sort of spills out. Sometimes the hole gets clogged, but then I'll catch an 80s movie on TV and hear your hyena laugh, or I'll see a girl wearing flip-flops in the rain or I'll hear Stevie Nicks and it'll be like Dran-o, unclogging the hole and I'm emptying while filling with the warmth of these ghostly memories of Isabella.**

**So know that I've not forgotten you. I made a promise, and despite my current life, I'm keeping it.**

**I will always, always keep my promise.**

**Thank you for teaching me to not doubt that which is true.**

**Because our love was and is true, Bella.**

**I'll see you, one day. I love you.**

**-Edward**

Time isn't really a concept, anymore. So, I can't really imagine how much time it took him. I didn't keep up with him, that is- I didn't watch him anymore, so I can't say what he was up to during that time, either.

I didn't have to stick to his side. He'd made a promise to find a way— to always, somehow find a way to be together, forever- eventually.

He kept his promise.

* * * *


End file.
